Every advertiser wants to maximize ad budgets to bring more customers into their store or increase requests for their services. A great way to do so is to make sure you are bidding on your own brand’s terms.
The costs-per-click (CPC) on branded keywords are typically much less expensive, and branded terms produce higher than average conversion rates -- driving down costs-per-action. But, don’t consumers who search for your brand already know who you are and what goods or services you offer? And why should you buy paid traffic for your brand’s terms when you already rank highly in organic listings?
Let’s look at 3 reasons why branded traffic is so crucial to your digital marketing success:
1. Branded campaigns drive a significant volume of conversions at a much lower cost.
We examined LBN Partner data to understand the role branding initiatives played in overall campaign performance in the healthcare and commercial power equipment verticals. We found that, on average, our healthcare clients received 20% more conversions with just 5% of their budget spent on branded traffic, and outdoor equipment clients saw 27% more conversions with a 3% investment in branding. These dramatic increases are a result of two factors: 1) highly qualified searchers and 2) low cost traffic. As a result, clients’ cost-per-conversion is driven down dramatically when purchasing branded traffic.
2. When combined with SEO, bidding on branded
keywords allows you to capture a greater
share of consumers interested in your brand.
Studies by Bing show “there is an opportunity cost to not bidding on your own brand terms.” Their most recent study found that when companies advertised on branded keywords in addition to their pre-existing SEO traffic, clicks increased by 27% - 31% in the verticals examined. That boost excludes the 11% - 18% of clicks that would have gone to SEO if the ads were not there.
Branded advertising campaigns capture a significant amount of traffic from brand-aware consumers who would have otherwise been lost to competitors on the page.
Branded advertising campaigns capture a significant amount of traffic from brand-aware consumers who would have otherwise been lost to competitors on the page.
3. Branded search ads lift brand awareness by an average of 6.6 percentage points.
In a recent meta-study, Google and Ipsos Media CT found that search ads help build brand awareness, keeping you top of mind even when a searcher doesn’t click on your ad. As explained in a Think with Google article, with search, “brands get access to an interested audience at the moment the consumers are interested.” So, if consumers don’t take action right away, they are 6.6% more likely to find you next time.
Including branded keywords in your pay-per-click strategy is integral to the success of your brand’s digital marketing goals. They can work as a complement to your existing organic results to capture the maximum amount of traffic and help you stay top-of-mind with new and existing customers. As shown above, the cost of branded traffic typically makes up only a small portion of the overall campaign spend, but can offer an outstanding return on investment. With finite budgets and increasing focus on actionable media spend, the question isn’t whether you can afford to bid on branded terms. The question should be… Can you afford not to?
