Your Brand Campaign is an Essential Part of Google Ads Success

Let’s assume your SEO is top notch and you have the glory of position 1 on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP).  Chances are, you’re not going to be the first thing people see – in fact, you could have your top 3 competitors right above you!  How do you fight this – with a brand campaign.

Here are 7 reasons for bidding a little for your name in Google Ads.  Got another one?  Add it in the comments!

1) Better Organic Results – a Brand campaign doesn’t cannibalize your organic traffic – it’s actually been proven to boost traffic by up to 89% and that gives a bump to conversions!

2) SERP real estate.  Showing up twice has to be better than showing up once.  Plus, with enhanced sitelinks, callouts and other features in Google Ads you’ll simple occupy more screen space at a very reasonable cost. 

3) Typos & Misspellings – pobody’s nerfect, everyone makes mistakes.  Even on your business name.  And people can butcher your name so badly that Google won’t even bother with the somehow condescending message “Did you mean”

By bidding on variations and common misspellings of your brand terms, you can ensure your ad at least is shown to these tragic typers.

4) Page Control – want to have a little more say on what pages people see on your site?  Play traffic cop with your brand ad, send visitors to a page you’re testing, a special promotion or just the pages that convert best.

You also get regional control, so you could have location specific messaging on certain pages like phone numbers and location info.  Makes your site seem that much more local!

5) Stick it to the Competition – bid highest on your brand terms.  Your Google Ads account gets a nice lift in historical Click Through Rate because most of the time users are looking for your brand term.  (Doubly so in eCommerce).

Your brand term costs you a few cents per click, and your higher bid makes your competitors bidding on your brand terms pay more and it reduces their normalized Quality Score and historical account CTR.  So you’re actually really sticking it to them!

And since Google factors in relevance, they’ll often only show your ad in the top premium positions and regularly remove competitors ads.  (Thanks Google!)

6) Flexible Messaging.  You control the brand messaging.  Got a promotion going on? Chuck it in an Google Ad and don’t mess with your website.  Have a few variations on your brand?  Great – different brand terms can have entirely different messaging, and you can customise the offer for each one!

7) Blocking Strategy – This stops others from stealing the prospects that clearly know your brand.  These are people you’ve cultivated through various marketing channels or past experiences, without a brand campaign you’re risking up to 3 other competitors getting their hooks into your customer!

There’s a host of reasons to keep your brand campaign healthy, if you’re looking to learn even more PPC wisdom – check out the training hub and global digital marketers community, AgencySavvy.com