How to raise brand awareness through pay per click (PPC) advertising

There is a recurrent (and mistaken) myth on the paid search industry that states you shouldn’t bid for your brand terms in your PPC advertising campaigns. Defenders of this idea say it is a waste of money to bid for branded terms since you’re already ranking #1 for your brand name on organic results.

This is a big mistake. There are multiple reasons why you should be bidding on brand terms.

1. Avoid competitors appearing for your brand terms. Your smart competitors might bid for your brand terms, and if you don’t bid too, they will be showing up for your brand-related search queries and can end up stealing your potential and existing customers. It will be a costless effort for you to bid on your brand terms: your will typically have a pretty high Quality Score on such keywords on AdWords (QS of nearly 9/10), resulting on really low CPCs.

2. Brand keywords work wonderfully. Brand-related terms, product-related terms and even keywords including your URL have typically a great performance. You will see outstanding CTRs, the highest Quality Scores and impressive conversion rates. This will improve your overall campaign performance.

3. Domination of search results. Being present in both the organic results and the paid ads will result on you dominating the SERPs. This will make you a prominent player of your industry.

Bidding on brand terms is an excellent and relatively cheap branding opportunity that you shouldn’t miss, so make sure your PPC agency notes down this strategy. If you’re still unsure give it a go and see the results on your own campaign.

Iñigo Etxebeste, September 24, 2013