Using paid search campaigns to increase the number of leads or sell more products is a very effective way to get instant gratification and results, however it can be among the most expensive for client acquisition. That is the reason branded search terms need to be included as an individual ad group. There are many benefits to bid on branded search terms from lower cost per click, to preventing competitors from stealing website traffic and customers. While some marketers and business owners may believe that this is a crazy method and may shy away from it, I am a firm believer in this tactic.
We have been working with a client in the financial space for the last three years and they receive a few hundred monthly leads from organic search as well as referral traffic. So every time we brought up using paid search they were hesitant due to a bad previous experience they had with another agency. After a few calls our project manager was able to convince to dip their feet in the water using only branded search terms.
The campaign was set up and the first 30 days did not deliver a huge increase in leads, but now that we are in to our third month check out the image below for the number of leads comparing the last 14 days to the previous 14. Not bad right?
Every lead they are able to close is worth anywhere between $1K to $5K. These results have been obtained by spending less than $50 per day.
Lower Cost Per Click
Since you are bidding on your brand name you will be paying less per click than for general search terms the majority of the time. Also using this practice will increase your quality score due to the relevancy. Bidding on general terms in the financial industry often times you can pay up to $15 per click compared to as low as .63 cents when you are using branded terms.
Okay, before anyone brings up search volume as an argument let me address it. For the two previous campaigns I worked on the search volume for branded terms was in the neighborhood of up to 1,500 monthly. Not impressive numbers by any means but enough to make the effort worth our while.
Prevent Competitors from Stealing Traffic
As I previously mentioned if you are not bidding on your brand, the chances are that your competitors are. For one campaign I worked on about 2 years ago, when we first inherited the campaign they did not even rank for their own brand organically or paid. However, after about 6 months they owned the first page in the organic results. They were always against using paid search so they lost out on thousands of visits to their website and leads that they could have received had they used paid.
The current paid campaign I am managing receives anywhere between 700 to 800 visits from paid and they are converting at a little over 19 percent. Not great but according to our Google rep these are great stats. Prior to the client getting on board their competitors were capitalizing on all of these visits.
Help Dominate the SERPs
As Google continues to make adjustments to their algorithm it is becoming more important to own as much of the real estate on the search results pages whether it is for branded or general terms. The more results we own above the fold the odds are that we are increasing the chances getting our results clicked on.
Take a look at the results Google pulled in for Nike. These results above the fold are for their paid campaign and website, the Knowledge graph to the right and below that you can see local results followed by related news, Wikipedia, etc.
Improve Conversions
If people are searching for your brand they are mostly likely interested in using your services or purchasing your products. Let’s consider these warm leads. Whether they heard about you from a friend or any other type of marketing campaign you are using, they know who they are looking for and what they want, so why not give it them. If you do not; your competitors just might. After all they are searching for you not someone that might be trying to be you.
Increase Website Traffic
Increasing website traffic is one of the ways business owners will increase their chances of selling more products or increasing leads. Why not drive more visitors to their websites by bidding on branded search terms? In some case this type of traffic can account for up 13 to 15 percent in one study that number proves to be even higher. Plus at times it will convert at a higher rate since people are already looking for the brand to do business with them.
Bidding on branded search terms is the low hanging fruit marketers should be picking in higher numbers. Now I am not suggesting that you place all your eggs in one basket but distribute them evenly to increase the number of chicks that will hatch successfully. I apologize if I lost you with my fruit picking and egg analogies. What meant is that you should take advantage of every opportunity that will help you save money and increase conversion rates, traffic and SERP domination.
