Over the past six months, there are two questions I’ve been asked more than any others:

1) Should I be paying in Google Adwords for branded search terms that I am already showing up for organically?

2) How are you still single?

Let’s just say I enjoy my freedom and focus our attention on whether or not it makes sense to eat into advertising expenses on branded terms.

The short answer is usually yes. If everything was black and white in search engine marketing, we could remove the word usually and end this blog post now, but of course, as in life itself, there is plenty of room in the gray.

Few things are meerly black and white

Every article I have ever read, along with my own personal experiences, have led me to the conclusion that paying for branded terms even when you have a strong presence organically makes sense. Without getting into too much detail and throwing out statistics that I can’t verify, let me read off all of the logical reasons why you should purchase branded terms:

Why You Should Purchase Branded Search Terms

1. You can control the message you want eyes to see.

2. Dominating all aspects of a search has proven to lead to higher conversation rates.

3. You have worked hard to build up your name. Why let others have equal placement?

4. If properly managed, branded traffic should cost under 30 cents a click and on average be less than 10% of your budget. 

5. Like anything else the key is testing and if conversion tracking is setup, you will almost certainly see a very high conversion rate on your branded campaign.

Click above to see paid and organic search dominating a branded term

These are all valid claims and the relatively small investment is usually worth ensuring conversions.

Why do I continuously use the word usually and refuse to clearly back the “just-say-yes-to-branded-terms” philosophy? The answer is that in rare instances it may make sense to avoid allocating funds to branded terms.

I would say that if you find 2 of the following 3 scenarios to be true, then you should back away from the branded theory.

When To Avoid Branded Keyword Bidding

1. If no competitors are bidding on your branded terms.

2. If marketing budgets are very tight and you really want to focus on individual products or services.

3. If, after testing, you are in the minority and branded terms do not appear to be providing as high of a return as other campaigns.

I like to think that I am always trying to do what’s in the best interest of the client.  In order to do that, some questions must be asked and some analysis must be done. Hopefully, this blog post will provide an organized guideline as to whether or not paying for branded terms makes sense for you.