The so called branding campaigns, displaying advertisements that promote a given brand, cause much controversy. People frequently cannot comprehend the reason of such a solution: if a company’s website is displayed at the first position in the search results, does it make any sense to use Google AdWords to display ads that will be shown one position above it?
The customer will eventually visit the site anyway. The experience proves that such activities are not always meaningless: this article presents several arguments that support the branding campaigns.
1. Low costs
High quality result, at the level of 10 for an exact phrase and between 8-10 for phrases with mistakes, is one of the characteristic features of branding campaigns. Consequently, in the case of companies with names composed of popular, commonly used terms, the cost per click rate is usually within the range of couple of cents. On the other hand, the customers who enter the given phrase are familiar with the brand, so they may be more willing to make a purchase. In the result, such campaigns not only reduce the costs, but improve the profitability as well.
2. Account quality improvement
Historical quality score of a Google AdWords account is one of the factors that influence the CPC rate. If a branding campaign with low cost per click rate and high CTR is started already at the beginning of the account creation process, it will have a positive impact on the improvement of the account quality.
3. Taking customers straight to the target site
Some companies possess a “showcase website”, displayed in the organic results of a branding query. Such a site contains basic information about the network, while the shopping site with the product offer is located in one of the tabs. Some users who are not aware of this fact or who have some difficulties with finding the shop may give up on the online purchase after a visit on such a site. Branding campaign in Google AdWords may increase the sales by directing the users straight to the shopping site, where they will be able to make their purchase.
Intersport – example of a situation where a branding page plays an informative role, while the shop itself is located on a separate domain
4. Increase in the cost per click rate for competitive companies
In the case of many industries, competitive companies trigger their advertisements when the name of a given brand is entered, hoping that they will be able to take over some traffic of the given site and acknowledge the users with their own brand. Using a branding campaign, it is possible to make such activities more difficult: branding ad of a given company will be displayed at the first position and its presence will increase the CPC rate for other advertisers.
5. Information about discounts and special offers
Organic results at Google do not enable the display of information about special offers or discounts. However, Google AdWords makes it possible to inform the customers about such features either with the text of an advertisement itself or with the use of hyperlinks directing to particular pages of a given site. Moreover, due to the countdown option, the advertiser is able to notify the customers about the time left for the performance of a purchase on preferential terms. This way, the customers are able to quickly learn about the details of the current special offers, without being distracted by other messages during their time spent on the site or when browsing the search results for an information about the given company.
6. Information about the location of brick and mortar stores
In the case of companies with vast network of brick and mortar shops, the customers often look for information related to the location of such stores. Appropriate add-ons make it possible to quickly inform them about the location of the nearest store and, consequently, to increase the offline sales.
7. Increased site accessibility
There are many e-commerce brands with names composed of keywords or phrases commonly used in the given industry. In the case of such solutions, without the site positioning system and actions performed at the SEO level, the shopping site may not be displayed within the first ten search results. Such a situation hinders the access to the given store. Branding campaign enables the display of an ad at the first place of the search results, therefore it may be treated as a solution to this problem.
As you may see, a branding campaign generates numerous advantages for the site. We recommend using it, even to a limited extent, in the case of virtually each and every Google AdWords account.
Published July 20, 2015
