5 Reasons Why Not Advertising on Brand Search Terms Can Be Expensive

1. Metrixa – Data Driven Digital Marketing 5 Reasons Why Not Advertising on Brand Search Terms Can Be Expensive The issue of whether companies should pay for brand keywords or not has been an on-going topic with digital marketers for years, and as Google and Bing take up more above-the-fold content with advertising, it’s clear that the discussion is not going away. Whether you accept it as a necessary expense, legitimate service, or you feel like your brand is being held for ransom, it is important to keep your mind open to the opportunities for profit and growth that it presents. So even if you are strongly opposed to the principle of it, here are 5 good reasons why you should pay for searches on your brand: 1 | P a g e

2. Metrixa – Data Driven Digital Marketing 1: You can’t dominate the page without it When someone searches for your brand on Google or Bing, they are presented with organic results, site links, and general information about your company such as addresses, ratings, opening & closing hours, images, etc. However, the very first thing they see is your paid ad (or someone else’s). Having your ad appear on your brand terms allows you to ensure that your company takes up 100 per cent of the above-the-fold space, every time. This is crucial for mobile devices– which account for over 50 per cent of all searches –because the paid ad may be all that a searcher sees above the fold. 2: It is the only section of the search results you actually control You can create a fantastic meta-description for your home page, yet organic search results may pull any content from the actual page instead. You don’t fully control which pages appear in the non-paid results, site links, or which reviews appear in your social profile. Despite listing your page URLs and using content primarily created by your company, the only section of the search results page that you have any real control over is the paid advertising. You have complete control over your ad content, landing page and targeting, meaning you can craft unique messages and design custom experiences to appeal to particular audiences with paid search. Your paid search ad can be a fantastic selling tool, allowing you to communicate highly relevant and timely messages to your audience. Examples of effective use of ads for brand keywords include promoting special events, product releases, advising of critical information such as product callbacks, and PR activities. 2 | P a g e

3. Metrixa – Data Driven Digital Marketing 3: Keywords don’t come cheaper Bing Ads and Google Adwords have similar bidding platforms that reward advertisers based on relevance and quality. High-quality scores result in lower cost-per-click for ads and keywords. When your company ads appear on brand related searches, the relevance of content along with the click-through rates are likely to be extremely high. They should be higher than any other keyword you target. For this reason, as well as a lack of competition (which we will look at next), your brand keywords should have some of the lowest CPCs of your entire account. 4: It keeps your competitors out Following on from point 3, just as your quality score is extremely high for your brand search terms, low click-through rates and lack of relevance will increase the amount that your competitors need to pay. Your competitors won’t have high click-through-rates or relevance even if you don’t advertise. However, the disparity created by your high click-through rates will push up their CPCs considerably. In most cases I have seen, only advertising on your brand makes the keywords completely unaffordable for your competitors. 5: It is profitable People searching for brand names are usually approaching the end of the buying cycle. They have often made a decision (you!) and are searching for your company to purchase or otherwise engage. By customizing your paid search ads and landing pages, you have the ability to guide these users through your optimized conversion funnels and significantly increase your conversion rates. 3 | P a g e

4. Metrixa – Data Driven Digital Marketing Contrary to what you may believe, these conversions were not ‘guaranteed’ with organic traffic. Bing and Google have both released data showing that bidding on your brand keywords increases your share of clicks while also decreasing clicks that competitors get. Bonus Reason 6: It helps your overall account performance In 2014, Google confirmed that they take the performance of your existing ads, landing pages and keywords as an indication of how any new ads, landing pages and keywords will perform. If you have hands-on experience with search engine marketing, you will know that your new keywords will start out with high CPCs and as you increase click- through-rates and establish a quality score, it can decrease – sometimes drastically. Your brand search terms help give your new keywords, ads, and landing pages a little quality boost that can result in major cost savings. Whether you are for or against search engines allowing ads to appear on your brand results page, it is clear that your company should ideally be positioned to gain and control that space. With some quality strategy to support you, those brand search terms can be a highly profitable part of your search engine marketing efforts; delivering profits, growth, and more. If you are not already bidding on your brand search terms or are in need of some strategy/guidance on how to extract the most value from brand searches, contact me on twitter @nathan5ri or contact Metrixa today. 4 | P a g e