Brand search

What brand search is

Brand search is demand you already created. Someone knows your name and typed it. The click is cheap, the ad is highly relevant, and the conversion rate is far above generic terms.

Non-brand is everything else: category terms, problem terms, competitor terms. Keeping them apart is the first structural decision in a paid search account (buying ads on search engine results pages).

Let's take a plumbing company as an example. The plumbing company buys Google ads to get homeowners who need a plumber this week. Queries that include the plumbing company's name are brand search. Queries like emergency plumber are not. Someone typing the name already knows who to call. Someone typing emergency plumber near me has not named them yet.

Why brand search matters

Brand search distorts every average in the account. Brand terms convert so well that a blended return can look healthy while non-brand quietly loses money.

Brand search also distorts automated campaigns. Performance Max (PMax: a single Google campaign that serves across Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, and more) will harvest brand queries if you let it, then report the result as its own achievement.

How to read brand search results

Report brand and non-brand separately, always. Keep brand terms out of generic campaigns with negative keywords (terms you tell Google not to serve on), and use brand exclusions on automated campaign types.

Let's take a plumbing company as an example. Brand Search spends $2,000 and books 80 visits, $25 each ($2,000 of brand spend divided by 80 booked visits). Non-brand spends $6,000 and books 67 visits, about $90 each ($6,000 of non-brand spend divided by 67 booked visits). Presenting $54 blended CPA (cost per acquisition: $8,000 of total Search spend divided by 147 booked visits) hides the acquisition number. Then a competitor starts bidding on the plumbing company's name. Brand impression share, the share of brand auctions they appear in, drops from 95% to 70%. The plumbing company keeps paying for the name because someone else will take the click. Treat high return with suspicion, not pride. The real question is incrementality: what happens to total booked visits when you pause brand for a while. Use impression share to check whether competitors are actually taking your traffic. After a local radio burst, the plumbing company sees more searches for its name. Many of those people would have clicked the organic result. Paid brand still matters if a larger plumbing chain is bidding on the name.

Common brand search mistakes

• Presenting a blended account return that brand traffic is carrying.
• Chasing 100% brand impression share when nobody is bidding against you.
• Letting automated campaigns absorb brand without exclusions.