Bidding on your own PPC Brand Terms is a common discussion between clients and service teams and is one in which opinions are always divided. Is it really worth paying for traffic on your site, which would most likely have been secured organically? Bidding on your own PPC Brand Terms is an effective way to cost-effectively improve your overall account performance while gaining insight into your audience…if you’re willing to pay for it.
Below are four reasons you should consider investing in PPC advertising for your branded keywords.
Dominate the SERPs
Although most brands will be the only focus on their searches, results will undoubtedly be from various sources meaning that you may lose traffic to sites such as Facebook, Wikipedia or eBay. Whilst this doesn’t pose a huge threat, it does risk users getting side tracked or ending up on a marketplace which will take commission from the sale.
The most worrying thing is that brand terms can closely touch on generic keywords leading to other competitors being added to the mix. As a result, confusion with similarly named websites can occur and there is an opportunity for users to research products further before making a purchase.
Control Messaging
The biggest advantage of running a brand-based AdWords campaign is that you will have control over the messaging. Unlike organic listings, you can choose the exact messaging displayed in paid adverts. This means that you can make immediate changes and you can schedule what you want to be published and when.
This will be most effective for short-lived promotions, such as weekend sales. However, over the long term, ad testing allows for different messaging to be utilized allowing you to discover what resonates best with your customers. By feeding this information into your overall strategy, you could bring value to your other channels as well as you can promote your strongest message.
Ad Extensions
Messaging extensions are an extremely useful tool to help improve value and ensure you get the right information in front of yours. Using sitelinks will help to guide the user towards your priority pages such as promotions or sale sections. Another method of strengthening trust is through ratings, so allow visitors to read reviews before making any purchases.
Businesses who operate call centers or are service-focused may benefit from call extensions. As trends in mobile traffic continue to rise it is the perfect time to tap into this to get more leads and inquiries.
Placing ads that are click-to-call only can also be highly valuable to some businesses.
Deter Competition
One profitable strategy for many businesses is to bid on competitor’s terms. Users can be reached at a fraction of the cost of generic keywords and strong selling points can entice customers to make a purchase.
It is important to have an AdWords presence with a long history because this will make it very difficult for competitors to enter into your space. It will also make it hard for them to gain any traction to develop a quality score.
Customer Visibility
By paying for clicks instead of relying on organic clicks you’re also able to gain greater visibility into the traffic your website is generating. With paid clicks you’re able to identify exactly what people are searching for that draws them to your site along.
In Conclusion…
Although there is no definitive answer to whether a brand campaign should be run as part of a paid search strategy, it is important to consider whether the four above methods would far outweigh the click cost.
Last Update: Wednesday, July 27th, 2016
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