Among most PPC pros, bidding on brand is an accepted practice. Still, some clients (and maybe even some PPC pros), continue to resist it.

Benefits on bidding on brand terms:

You can present your brand accurately

As the brand owner, you know your brand best. And when you bid on brand, you can make sure that your brand is represented correctly in your ads.

When you leave brand bids to your affiliates and partners, you can run into problems of brand misrepresentation.

You can ‘compete’ with affiliates & partners

Even if your affiliates and partners are presenting your brand accurately, that doesn’t mean you should abandon bidding on brand.

Quite the contrary.

If you’re like my clients, you prefer to sell directly to customers. You still want to bid on brand so that your ad will appear along with ads placed by your partners and affiliates.

You get PPC ‘proof of concept’

It allows us to show how clicks and impressions accumulate over time and demonstrate the value of how non-branded search, remarketing, and GDN campaigns help to build up brand awareness.

Benefits of bidding on your brand terms:

Position yourself as a market leader

Studies show that companies who show up in the #1 spot in both sponsored listings and organic results have increased credibility & top-of-mind awareness to their audience.

Paid search and organic listings work together to lift your brand awareness. Test this yourself by measuring brand query growth over time.

Lower CPA’s

Visitors who are searching with your brand name are closer to the point of converting than those using broader searches.

Sure they “might” find you in the organic SERP’s, but why would you take the risk of losing out on any of these important searches?

Don’t lose clicks to your competition

Savvy competitors are most likely already bidding on your brand name, showing above your organic listing.

It’s nearly impossible to show up at the top of the page for your brand searches 100% of the time through organic listings alone, unless you somehow have zero competition.

Short conclusion

Of course there are some occasional situations where it may not make sense to bid on your brand keywords, but 95% of the time this is something we strongly recommend as part of a SEM strategy.

At the end of the day, Paid Search is the most measurable of media so you can always make sure you’re getting value for your money.