Is Brand Bidding in Google Ads Right for You?

Is bidding on your own business name in Google Ads the right move?

Of course, the answer is “it depends.” However, for most small businesses this is not the best use of your money on Google Ads.

If someone is searching for your business by name, then they are already aware of your business and likely an existing customer.

Why pay for traffic from existing customers when that budget can instead be used to prospect for new customers?

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Video Transcription

0:06
hey this is Riley with Main Street ROI
0:08
and today’s tip has to do with brand
0:10
bidding so what is brand bidding why is
0:13
it important should you do it should you
0:15
not do it is it going to work for you or
0:18
not these are all questions we want to
0:20
explore
0:21
so brand bidding is when you are in this
0:25
case we’re looking at search campaigns
0:27
when you’re bidding on keywords you’re
0:29
targeting keywords in in your account
0:31
that mention your actual business name
0:34
your brand
0:35
so this is sometimes it’s just applied
0:39
as a best practice
0:41
I don’t think it should be applied in
0:43
probably most cases
0:45
and here’s why so the the purpose of
0:49
brand bidding is to really make sure
0:51
that your business has visibility when
0:53
when someone types in your business name
0:55
into Google your competitors may be
0:57
bidding on your brand and so they may be
0:59
showing up
1:01
in search results when someone types in
1:03
your business name
1:04
so the purpose of bidding on your own
1:06
brand is to make sure that you’re
1:08
maintaining visibility for your business
1:10
when someone types in your business name
1:12
hopefully your organic listing shows up
1:15
on the first page of Google but
1:17
additionally if you’re running ads may
1:19
as well have your ads show up as well
1:21
the problem with brand bidding is that
1:24
in my experience
1:26
people who click on brand ads are almost
1:30
100 of the time existing customers
1:34
so while that may be fine for very large
1:37
businesses if you are a small business
1:39
and you don’t have a large very large
1:41
ads budget you’re effectively paying for
1:43
traffic that you would otherwise get for
1:46
free
1:47
however I do think that there is a use
1:49
case for brand bidding so while I don’t
1:52
think it’s relevant for anything that
1:55
maybe a medium or high involvement
1:57
purchase like for example going to a
2:00
dental office
2:01
if somebody’s typing in a specific
2:03
dentist name they’re pretty much dead
2:06
set on working with that dentist
2:07
especially if they have an appointment
2:09
already scheduled they’re not going to
2:11
just go with a competitor simply because
2:13
that competitor showed up in search
2:14
results and you didn’t you know if
2:17
they’re booked at your office they’re
2:19
going to find your office
2:20
but I do think brand bidding does make
2:23
sense when we’re talking about
2:25
lower involvement purchases so products
2:28
that are less expensive that may be
2:31
reasonable that someone may flip to a
2:33
different business if you know if they
2:36
had a
2:37
a little bit cheaper price or whatever I
2:40
do think brand bidding has a place there
2:43
so um not completely irrelevant but just
2:46
wanted to put that out there because
2:48
brand bidding is a pretty pretty much
2:49
standard practice that I see in accounts
2:52
and I don’t think it’s probably very
2:56
relevant most of the time
2:58
this is also why I like to make a case
3:01
for call tracking because when
3:03
especially if phone call is an important
3:05
metric for your business it’s really
3:08
important to be able to check up on lead
3:10
quality to see you know are we driving
3:11
quality leads and where are they coming
3:14
from where are the highest quality leads
3:16
coming from which keywords which
3:17
campaigns where the lowest quality leads
3:20
coming from so that’s kind of it for
3:23
brand bidding if you have any questions
3:25
please reach out to us and I’ll see you
3:27
guys at the next tip
3:34
thank you