PPC Brand Bidding Advice: Advantages, Disadvantages & Tips

By Ted Parry 3 March 2017 4 minute read
Not sure whether to bid on your brand for ppc terms? Seen other companies do it but not sure how it works? No fear, this little guide should help clear up any doubts and let you know whether it’s right for you.

Advantages

Prevents Competitors Stealing TrafficOne of the main advantages to run pay per click campaigns for your brand is the fact you can prevent sneaky competitors from stealing your traffic.And guess what?It probably converts for them very well if your offerings are similar. This is not good news for you as it could not only mean a lost sale, but a lost customer in the process.If competitors are bidding on your brand it would be heavily advised to ensure you have a presence.Control Over AdvertsWith the organic search listings yes you can change your meta headline and description, however you cannot choose your sitelinks and which pages show for you. This is when brand bidding can be very advantageous. You can essentially display what promotions you have on your website at that moment in time.Running a 20% off summer sale?Promote it to everyone that searches for your brand name. That way even if they don’t click on the paid link and on the organic one, you’ve got your message out and saved a few pennies in the process :) .Sixt example below:Ppc brand bidding - sixtThey even managed to get a review from the British Travel Awards which will increase their conversion rate.Cheap ConversionsThere is no doubting that the highest quality traffic you’re going to get is from your branded terms. That’s why it’s often the case your cost of sale / cost per lead will be really low if you have a strong brand.So even if it is costing you a little bit more money to run the campaigns, the revenue you get back will often times make it worthwhile.More Traffic ShareYou may think if someone is searching for your brand, why would they then not bother to click?… But people will surprise you.Studies have shown that businesses who have visibility for both the paid and organic listings report higher click through rates and thus traffic (up to 31% more).As a very basic example if you are potentially losing out on even 10% of your traffic from branded terms that could be significant to your bottom line.To put this into perspective if your business generates £100,000 a year from your organic listing and you were to see revenue increase 10% on the back of a branded pay per click campaign, that would be £10,000. It may only cost you £500 to run the paid search campaign over the year which is £9,500 in incremental revenue you could be losing out on.Ouch!Visibility Over Branded Keyword SearchesThe worrying reality is that many businesses don’t bother to track what revenue they are getting from their organic clicks because it’s “free” AND Google encrypts keyword data. However as soon as directors are told they have spent £££ on a ppc campaign they want to know what they got back in return.This means you’ll be able to know exactly what people have been searching for and will also be able to improve the performance by making bespoke landing pages or even changing the ad copy. 

Disadvantages

Can Be ExpensivePpc brand biddingFor businesses that are running on a limited budget but have a brand that is searched for often may worry about the subsequent costs. This is often true if you have a generic brand name that is present in a very competitive and high cpc niche.One example of this would be having a domain like healthinsuranceonline.co.uk. This is a very generic keyword that people probably search for anyway, and unless you have a really high click through rate you’ll likely be paying around £19.11 per click if not more.Not Great For Long TailA lot of branded ppc campaigns are setup with broad or phrase keywords which mean you capture a search anytime a searcher types in a search query around your brand.If your negative keywords aren’t in then it could mean noncommercial queries that you’re unfortunately paying for e.g. brand customer service or brand contact details.Another downside to this, is the fact that you are showing your homepage to potentially anyone, if you have a poor ad group structure.See the below example:Ppc brand bidding - car gurusGuess where this page went to? Their homepage.Not great considering they probably want to go directly to the used fords page. This is a snag and something you should definitely look out for if you’re using broad or phrase match.Is PPC Brand Bidding Worth Testing?Absolutely! Regardless of what you decide after reading this article make it your point to test it. Every business is different and will react in different ways. Ensure that you’re either making the most of paid traffic or conserving your budget when you need it the most. Considering running a branded PPC campaign and don’t know where to start?Think I Can Help?Feel free to get in touch today > ted@amoredigital.co.uk.

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