Why Pay For Clicks On Your Own Brand Terms?
When running PPC ads, it may seem absurd to be paying for clicks on your business’s own brand name. However, other businesses may be bidding on your brand name so that customers will go to their sites instead. Most businesses doing this boast lower prices and better quality in their advertisements to sway your customers from their brand loyalty.
Check out this ad that Monday did while bidding on their competitor’s, Asana, brand name. It can be risky and expensive to bid on competitors’ brand names. However, it can be an effective tool to poach customers in industries where brand loyalty is not as strong. It can be even more effective when competitors use the opportunity to use clever headlines to boast better products/services.
Does Your Brand Name Contain A Generic Term?
Your brand name may include a generic term that many businesses are bidding on in the auction. Perhaps your name includes an industry term such as Pharmacy, Accountant, Bakery, etc. This means that companies may not be bidding on your brand name. They are bidding on a word in your brand term that is causing competition in the Google Auction. These competitors can outbid you even though it’s your own name. Although, more often than not you will have a lower cost-per-click because Google sees your site as more relevant.
See this example of suburban furniture and Raymour & Flanigan furniture. Suburban Furniture is a smaller, more local store than the national Raymour & Flanigan brand. The Raymour & Flanigan ad likely showed first due to a higher budget and because the brand is likely bidding on the word “furniture” as part of a keyword in the majority of their campaigns. Some brands with larger budgets would be able to bid on just the word “furniture” on broad. This would bring in any search term phrase that included the keyword within a specified location and audience. Usually, bidding on your own brand name is inexpensive due to the specific nature of the phrase. However, that is not always the case if an industry keyword is included in your business name. Therefore, having a brand campaign is necessary to maintain a substantial presence in the search results.
Take Up Real Estate In Google Search Results
By bidding on your own brand, you take up more space on the first page of Google results. Doing so will allow you to have more control over the search results listed for your brand name. Using extensions on your ad will take up more space and ensure that there is far less space for competitors and alternative websites to show up in front of your customers.
The “Walmart example” shows Walmart, a large chain store, bidding on its own brand name. Notice how they take up the entire “before you scroll” real estate in the Google Search results. This means that if a competitor’s website were to rank organically on the first page among Walmart’s own website pages, there is still a lesser chance of customers seeing it and shopping with their competitor instead.
Customers click on a competitor ad or website purposefully for several different reasons. Sometimes, your competitors have better pricing than you offer or even more sales going on. A difference in the variety or quality that is offered by your competitor can be a persuasive reason. There are always instances where the customer does not care about the brand that they’re using to get their product and is more concerned with obtaining it. A great example of this is when a customer goes on Google for the purpose of buying several standard T-Shirts for summer. They search up “Dunnes Clothing Store” and an ad for “Marks & Spencer’s Clothing Store” comes up instead. Perhaps the Marks & Spencer’s Ad had mentioned that they sold T-Shirts or clothing. Although the customer searched for Dunnes, they clicked on Marks & Spencer’s to browse their clothing options instead out of convenience. While you may be the most relevant search result for your own brand term, it is always important to maintain a brand campaign.
What's Next For Your Google Ads Strategy?
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