In the ever-evolving world of digital marketing, one question sparks endless debate: should you bid on brand keywords or not?

This tactic, dubbed “brand bidding,” involves paying to have your company’s name or product front and centre in Google’s sponsored listing slots.

Now, we can hear the objections already. “Why would I pay for something I can get for free organically?” And it’s a fair point! Shelling out cash for branded traffic seems a bit counterintuitive at first glance. But hold onto your thoughts; there are actually some compelling arguments in favour of this approach.

The Pros of Brand Bidding

Capturing the Top Spot

First of all, bidding on brand allows you to own the very top of SERPs and provides prime real estate at the very top of Google search pages. This greater visibility can mean more clicks and more traffic.

Plus, these slots can act as a vivid billboard, allowing you to target your messages right to the desired audience. For instance, you can tailor the ad copy to highlight hot sales, fancy new product launches, or whatever dazzling offer you want.

Protection from Competitors

If you’re not bidding on your brand terms, your competitors could be bidding on them to poach customers that are considering buying from you. Capturing the top ad spot will prevent competitors from stealing your customers. This tactic becomes important in highly competitive markets.

Enhanced Brand Trust

When users see your brand name in paid ads as well as on the first page of Google’s organic search results, it can make your brand seem more reliable or authoritative. This solid presence can help you to establish credibility among potential customers who aren’t yet acquainted with your brand.

Tailored Landing Pages

You can direct traffic through PPC brand bidding ads to landing pages for click-through conversions, eliminating the need to rely on your homepage or organic landing pages. This is especially helpful for driving urgency on sales and new releases.

Performance Insights

Brand bidding campaigns also allow you to gather crucial insights and information about customer behaviour, their intent, and how people interact with your products to find potential bottlenecks. This data can help you make the conversation process more enjoyable and understand how potential customers move through your site. This data can also help optimise other campaigns and instruct your wider marketing strategies.

The Cons of Brand Bidding

Free Traffic

The biggest issue with brand bidding is that you would probably get the same traffic for free, because customers are already searching for your brand by name. This is especially true if your primary brand terms convert well organically, and there are no competitors bidding on your brand which place them above you in the search results.

Increased Costs

It’s important to note that bidding on brand names comes with increased ad costs. While these clicks are often cheaper than non-branded keywords, they still represent an additional cost that needs to be justified by the benefits.

Lower Quality Score Impact

Brand keywords usually have high-quality scores because the ads are relevant, resulting in what appears to be a net positive for your account-level quality score. However, if you’re already dominating your organic results page, that incremental benefit could be limited and potentially provide a misleading overall impression of the whole account.

Potential for Skewed Metrics

Typically, bid on brand campaigns achieve higher click-through rates and lower costs-per-click and are therefore able to deliver a superior portfolio of performance metrics. This could ultimately lead to misleading overall campaign performance data, as it may be difficult for you to know the true incremental impact of your non-branded campaigns.

Risk of Trademark Disputes

In some cases, bidding on brand keywords (leveraging against trademarked names) presents legal complications. It’s important to be aware of the policies and potential risks in your industry.

Making the Decision

The decision to bid on your brand terms should be based on your specific circumstances and factors.

• Competitive Landscape – If competitors exploit your brand terms by targeting your brand identity, you might want to defend using brand bidding.
• Brand Awareness – This technique can help lesser-known brands increase brand visibility.
• Budget Constraints – Evaluate if the benefits are worth spending budget on brand bidding.
• Brand Bidding – If you have well-thought-out conversion objectives, brand campaigns can be an additional channel for directing that traffic to optimised landing pages.
• Search Volume – Brands with a high volume of searches might benefit more from brand bidding.

Brand Bidding Best Practices

Strategies to bid effectively on your brand terms.

• Avoid wasting budget on irrelevant searches by using negative keywords (e.g., “phone number,” “address”).
• Write ad copy that complements your organic listings; don’t replicate them.
• Monitor and adjust bids to find the right balance between visibility and cost efficiency.
• Segment brand campaigns for better performance analysis.
• Continually measure the effect on overall marketing performance and ROI.

For extra inspiration to help shape your PPC strategy take a look at our complete guide 2024 PPC guide for business owners.

Conclusion

Using PPC to bid on brand terms can be an effective way of getting higher visibility, separating the good from the bad traffic, and converting more consistently. Yet, it’s not all roses and sunshine. The budget spent on brand bidding can sometimes be wasted as you may be able to get the same level of traffic for free from organic search.

Still not sure if you should bid on brand terms? We’re here to help. Get a free Google Ads consultation and align your goals with insights from experts!

Talk to our team of PPC specialists to find out if brand bidding is a viable strategy for your business, and how you can integrate brand bidding into your Google Ads strategy to increase performance.