Posted by daniela

In this follow-up article to Should I Bid On My Own Brand Part I, I will use real results to demonstrate the need for companies to bid on branded terms via Paid Search.  This real life experiment was conducted over a period of four months with a campaign focused on lead generation.  The company ranks number one in the search engines for all branded terms and there are no competitors buying these terms in Google. The account is comprised of five campaigns with one of these having only branded terms; that one has been named  ‘Branded Campaign’.

I. The Experiment

I measured organic and paid monthly stats before and after we paused the paid Branded Campaign.  In the first half of the four month experiment, all five campaigns were running. The Branded Campaign had 100% impression share and branded ads were shown not only for users searching for the client’s brand name but also for search phrases that included the client’s branded name. In the second half of the experiment we paused the Branded Campaign for two months leaving all the other non-branded campaigns running.   Finally I averaged out trends from the first half and second half of the experiment and then compared results.

II. Results

PPC Campaign

• Monthly average number of leads dropped by more than 65% after Branded campaign was paused.
• Monthly average conversion rate dropped by more than 35% from 5% in Month 1 and 2 (Branded Ads on) to 3% in Month 3 and 4 (Branded ads off). Branded Campaign in Month 1 and 2 was responsible for not just nearly half of all total paid leads but also all targeted traffic.
• Monthly average number of clicks decreased by more than 44% from 1,196 in Month 1 and 2 to 596 in Months 3 and 4.  Consequently monthly average CTR decreased by 40% from 3.35% to 2% after branded ads were paused.

The results above were expected because the Branded Campaign historically was responsible for about 50% of the total clicks and leads generated monthly.

Organic

• Monthly average traffic (Months 3 and 4) increased by only 173 visits after PPC Branded Campaign was paused.
• Surprisingly, monthly average conversions decreased by 7.5% and conversion rate decreased by 14% after Branded Campaign was paused during Months 3 and 4.

The organic results were disappointing because we were expecting traffic and conversions to shift from Paid to Organic.  Instead, conversions decreased from 90 to 83 and traffic increased by only 173 visits. By pausing the Branded Campaign, we lost about 40 leads and 400 visits in a period of 2 months.

III. Bottom Line

In this experiment, I demonstrated that the Branded Campaign dramatically boosted performance for  both Paid and Organic search results. Similar results are likely to be true for most accounts, however they can vary depending upon unique factors - e.g., your brand popularity and site navigation usability. You should try this experiment in your Adwords account and share your findings with us!

| More...