Should you run Branded Search Ads for your own brand keywords?
Should you run Branded Search Ads for your own brand keywords?
What are branded searches?
Branded searches are search ads that are triggered when someone searches for your brand keywords. Those ads give a brief preview of your site’s content and hopefully your brand in general.
Branded searches look like regular search ads. This means that branded search ads will have up to 3 headlines, up to 2 descriptions, sitelinks, and extensions. A ‘good’ branded search ad will populate a large part of a mobile screen.
Branded searched are cost-effective if you have a good keyword strategy in place. The costs are usually 2 to 4 cents per click. It is worth noting that good On-Page SEO will further reduce your costs.
Do branded searches make a difference?
IT DEPENDS
There are many factors that come into play when it comes to branded searches.
One factor is how good SEO your site has.
If you have a site that has stellar SEO, then that site should dominate the SERPs when someone types your brand keywords.
The problem with that approach is what will a searcher see when he types a random keyword such as brand + telephone.
Will your contact page rise to the first position or your Google My Business.
If you are not sure how such queries look, then you should be running branded searches for your brand keywords.
Another factor is searcher experience
When someone searches for anything, he or she expects to find it with minimal effort. Do you have campaigns, ad groups, and ads that satisfy that search? If no, then you should consider bidding on your own brand keywords
Other factors are metrics and data.
You need to be able to have some understanding of how your brand evolves over time.
For example, let’s say that you run branded search ads for 6 months. Then you should have enough data in order to answer the following questions
- Do the impressions increase?
- Does the impression decrease?
- Do the search terms paint a better picture for the brand?
- Where is the location of the searcher?
- Do my offline marketing efforts align with the branded searches?
- What does the ‘Search Terms’ Report reveal?
If you are interested in understanding how your marketing efforts are performing over time, then you should definitely bid on your brand keywords.
Should I invest in such ads?
YES AND NO
Branded search ads are a great way to satisfy the query of the searcher while also gathering data about your brand and your marketing efforts.
The problem with branded search ads is that many business owners want to rank for every brand keyword. This will increase PPC costs. Also, you might not want to rank for every brand keyword.
tl;dr
You should bid on your own branded keywords if
- You want to enhance the experience of the searcher
- You want to gather data
- You want to understand how your marketing efforts are performing
- You can invest the resources required
- You want to inform the searcher about something new
- You want to help navigate the searcher to the best possible destination
You shouldn’t bid on your own branded keywords if you don’t have the resources needed and you don’t really care about marketing data.
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