Should You Bid On Your Own Brand Name?

Should you bid on your own brand name? That’s a good question and it depends. There are circumstances when it is the right thing to do and there are pros and cons to brand bidding.

First, you need to know that brand bidding includes adding your brand names as keywords in your account. This includes all variations including misspellings, abbreviations, plural, singulars and so on.

And it also includes bidding on your domain names and putting the variations like this:

example.com
www.example.com
https://www.example.com

So here are some factors to consider when you’re asking, should I bid on my own brand name?

 

Who is searching?

First, think about who they are. Are they existing customers or new prospects? It’s not always easy to tell, but the search intent will give you a good idea.

For example, if someone searches for your brand name and includes the word “login”, then it’s likely that they’re an existing customer of your business. And you may want to add this as a negative keyword to block it, especially if you’re already appearing organically for it.

So, check your search terms report to see the actual brand searches that you’re getting and decide which ones to block and which ones to continue targeting.

 

What are people looking for?

This is closely tied to the point mentioned above. The searches that they’re using will give you a good idea of what they’re looking for as they use your brand names to search. And as mentioned above, you can see these in your search terms report.

Check the searches carefully. Are they general brand searches or are people looking for something related to your brand like your phone number?

And check how you appear organically for some of these searches. For example, you can check if they are looking for reviews for your business, so you may not want to appear for these type of searches in the ad results, especially if you have reviews on sites like Trustpilot and Feefo and you rank organically for them.

 

Are competitors appearing for your brand searches?

Competitors appearing for your searches does not necessarily mean they are bidding on your brand names.

It could be that they’re using match types which are also targeting your brand searches. This is common especially when you check your search terms report. You’ll see that you may be appearing for some competitors brand names without actually bidding on them.

This happens automatically especially if you’re using broad and phrase match keywords.

However, if your competitors are appearing for your brand names and pushing you lower in the results, then you should consider appearing there too. And consider bidding higher too.

 

Where do you appear on Google for your brand names?

If you’re still not appearing high enough organically for your brand keywords, then you should bid on them. This will happen for a number of reasons like if you’ve launched a new website or if you have a relatively generic name.

In such a case you should seriously consider bidding on your brand name so you can appear at the top of the first page.

 

What are the pros and cons of brand bidding?

 

Pros

1. Gives you more control over how you appear in the search results
2. Gives you more control over where you appear on the page
3. Costs significantly less than most other keyword types because of less competition
4. Easy to implement as there are less keywords to add
5. Allows you to put words like “Official” in your text ads to show that you are the owner of the brand when others are appearing too
6. Helps you choose specific locations to show ads in, like country, city etc.

 

Cons

1.  You will get clicks from visitors who would have clicked on your free Organic listing
2.  Can be expensive if you get a lot of brand searches

 

Conclusion

I hope this article has helped you to decide if brand bidding in Google Ads is right for your business. This is a question many pay per click (PPC) advertisers grapple with all the time, but knowing the pros and cons and the suggestions I’ve made above will help you to decide if it is right for your business. Every business and industry is different so you have to take that into consideration as you do your keyword brand selection.

 

Get in Touch

Want to know more about how brand bidding can help your business, or if you should be doing it at all? I’d be happy to help. I’m a Google Ads consultant and PPC expert with many years experience in brand bidding. Use the form below to contact me to discuss.