Own Brand Bidding: Part 2

In her blog post last week Mary began to address a quandary that most paid-search advertisers have spent time mulling over: “Why should I bid on my own brand term?” She noted that ensuring a presence in the sponsored results for your own brand term can protect your advertising real estate; if your ad isn’t it appearing in that space, a competitor’s ad might. This week, I expand on Mary’s blog with four further reasons to bid on your own brand term.

1. Control of message and destination URL: Trusting a search engine’s organic results to relay your brand to searchers leaves you in less control of the message that is displayed to customers. We can do our best to guide search engines to our preferred titles and descriptions, but there is no guarantee that we will be successful, and waiting for your site to be re-indexed can take time.

With paid advertising, you can instantly change the message that is presented to searchers. For example, it would be possible to conveniently adapt your ad’s message if you want to promote a sale or particular product. Similarly, unlike the organic results, paid search gives you full control of your listing’s destination page. Your website’s home page might not always be the best place for visitors to land; a custom page carrying information about a seasonal promotion might be more appropriate, for example.

2. Use of Google’s ad extensions: Paid advertisers benefit from ad extensions that are not available in organic listings. For example, Google offers the option of including location information, custom site links and click-to-call extensions within paid ads. Ad extensions can make your ad attention-grabbing as well as more functional. For example, if you want to target users searching for your brand on a mobile device but lack a website that functions well on a small smartphone, you could encourage users to give you a call instead of by adding a click-to-call extension to your ad.

3. Support your non-brand advertising: Unfortunately for us, sales and other desired actions don’t always occur after the first click. A paid visitor might make a note of your website’s name before closing their web browser with the intention of returning later on. When the potential customer wants to visit your website again and uses a search engine to get there, make it really easy for them to find you by appearing in a prominent position in the paid listings. Thus, bidding on your own brand facilitates the sales funnel.

4. Cheap clicks: Your own brand keywords will typically be given high-quality scores as a result of good click-through rates and strong ad-relevancy. This means that the clicks will be amongst the cheapest in your account, as well as the highest converters. For a small price, you will fill more of the search engine’s space with your brand and you’ll still stand to make a profit.

In sum, bidding on your brand can be both helpful to potential customers and profitable for your business. If you can think of any other arguments to bid on your own brand, or if you conversely believe that spending money on brand terms is a waste of advertising budget, feel free to post your views in the comment box!