Owning Your Brand – Smart or Wasteful?
by Valerie Anderson ~ September 16th, 2008 |
Let’s save some time and get to the point: owning your brand – smart idea or a waste of valuable marketing dollars? Answer: Smart idea. And here’s why. Owning your brand terms in paid search allows control over the message and landing page, increased visibility on the search engine results page (SERP) and a low cost-per-conversion. This concept is, in theory, a no brainer; yet as planners and strategists, we are often asked to consider eliminating brand terms from our strategy and keyword list in an effort to conserve funds for other crucial keywords. Ranking well for your brand terms organically is the foundation of a successful website; the people (your potential customers, clients and advocates) have to be able to find you. Yet, many advertisers fall short of going the distance by leaving out brand terms in paid search to fully actualize the potential of their brand to their bottom line.
Recently, an automotive company made the decision to remove all brand terms from their paid search campaign which ranked well organically. The thought influencing this decision was, “We rank well organically already, let’s invest the dollars elsewhere (namely other media, GASP!).” To much dismay, the crucial brand terms were paused, however closer attention was then paid to the monitoring the overall performance of these key terms in the organic silo to track performance.
The election this coming November will be very tight if you believe what the polls are telling us. Dead even right now, as a matter of fact. I would imagine that nominees will be trying to do everything in their power to get the advantage as we approach that ever fateful day election day.
