7 Benefits of Brand Bidding in Google Adwords

You will want to bid on your brand name if your site is new and has not achieved high rankings yet for your name. And that may be the case also if competitors are bidding on it and you have little power to stop them.
Brand name bidding includes bidding on the exact name, close variants, misspellings, domain names and other similar names.
One of the negatives of brand bidding is that you cannibalise your own traffic and pay for traffic you would have received anyway because of your organic listing.

1. Protects your brand

Bidding on your brand names ensures that you control the messages that your target customers see when they search on Google and other search engines. So, you control the benefits and features that searchers see and you can change these easily by updating your ads. And this allows you to address any negative comments or misconceptions about your brand by highlighting brand attributes, strengths and benefits.

2. Own the space

Your site will often be at the top of the organic results for your brand name searches, however there will also be competing sites in the top 10 results. Running some Google Ads ensures that you gain more exposure on the page and therefore more visitors for your brand searches.

3. Less competition therefore cheaper

Brand bidding often means you have zero competitors and that also means Cost Per Click (CPC) bids are much lower than other searches. So this can prove very profitable especially when you have not yet achieved high rankings in the natural results for your brand name.

4. Higher conversion rate

Conversion rates also tend to be very high for brand searches because these searchers are familiar with the brand either as existing customers, referrals or previous visitors. However, many people searching for your brand will not be looking to purchase but could be looking for more info about your products or updates about previous purchases. Many of these searchers will come direct to your website, however many will still search and click your ads. Overall, they are usually more profitable and it’s more important not to lose them to competitors.

5. Fends off competitors

Competitors will be reluctant to bid on your brand name if you are already doing so because their conversion rates are likely to be low and Click Through Rate (CTRs) will be low too. Also, bidding on your own brand name is usually a sign to competitors that you know what you are doing and are actively monitoring your search results to fend off competitors. They may not want to risk receiving the dreaded legal cease and desist letter.

6. More ad extensions eligible to run

More ad extensions are usually eligible to run for your brand name searches because of the high relevance to your ads. So your ad could include all your sitelinks, callouts, call, review and rich snippets. For many other searches your ads won’t be eligible to run and that’s one of the reasons CTRs can be quite low.

7. Good CTR

This is one of the major benefits of brand name bidding and CTRs as high as 60% and more are possible. With standard searches, CTRs tend to average 5% and even lower than 1% for generic searches. That means you can set lower budgets and still receive decent traffic volumes that will be profitable for your business. CTRs are this high for brand searches because searchers are familiar with your brand and they have little reason to click any other link except your organic listings – which is good too.