Once upon a time, search was the undisputed champion on the digital revolution. If you wanted to market digitally you did it on search, primary Google. As the market has matured and digital has become more of a commodity, this has significantly changed. Often now we hear companies and agencies asking, should I even bother being on search?
The answer to that is: maybe
So let’s break it down.
Search is primarily broken into two buckets. Brand which is generally your company name or some variation of it, and generic which encompasses broader terms around your product or industry. For example, if I am Apple running a search campaign, branded terms would be, “Newest Apple Phones” or “newest IPhone” but a generic term would be “best new cellphone”
Looking at them separately, we will start with branded search. For Brand, the Google data is very clear that you should always bid on your brand…but should you? It’s no surprise that Google data would promote you spending more money on their platform, but does it make sense for your business?
To answer that, here is what you should be asking:
For brand search, you need to ask, “How do I rank organically for my brand name?” Organic ranking is how high up on the results page you show for non-paid ads. Optimally, you should show up in the #1 position for your own business name although in competitive fields or if you have a brand name that is an industry term, you may not be.
If you are not in the #1 position for your own brand then the first thing you need to do is improve your SEO. If you are not familiar with it, SEO (Search engine Optimization) is the process of improving how search engines like Google perceive the quality and relevancy of your website. This determines how high up on the search results page your website will show. A website with good SEO that ranks well will get a huge boost to traffic just by being more visible. It can make or break a business.
If I are #1 for your brand, the next question you need to ask is, are my competitors bidding on my terms? If you see your competition showing up in ads when you search your brand then bidding on your brand can be a necessary tactic to protect your traffic. By bidding on your own brand terms, you can help push the competition down on the results works as a defensive measure to not lose customers. As a benefit, you generally have to pay less than your competition does to bid on your own brand. Google awards ads for relevancy which is how close your keywords and website are to what the user typed in. Higher relevancy means lower costs and your brand terms you should always be the most relevant, they are your terms after all.
If there are no competitors bidding on your brand and you have strong SEO then running a branded search campaign may just be throwing money away for traffic you would have gotten for free.
For Generic search, it becomes more of a cost driven decision. Take lawyers for example. Legal terms are by far the most expensive category on search year after year with single clicks going as high as $700 yet the payoff for a converted customer can still be worth it for them. Conversely, some businesses with a much lower average order value would not be profitable even with a $10 cost per click. If your product or service has a high average value and a high profit margin, then generic search can be much more forgiving. For businesses with more moderate to low product/service cost, the price for generic search may simply not be worth it, especially if the terms are highly competitive.
If this is the case, generic search may not make financial sense for your business. You may be better served using a lower cost upper funnel tactic such as social or display to generate interest. You can also test search as a remarketing tool leveraging RLSA (remarketing list for search ads). This allows you to only spend marketing dollars for people searching for a term if they have previously engaged with your brand. This will allow you to pre-certify the people you market to on search. The conversion rates on these types of users is generally much higher as repeat exposure generally increases conversion rates.
To calculate if your costs for generic are worth it, here is how you should look at it. Lets say a conversion is worth $500 to your company. Lets also say the average cost per click is $10 and your conversion rate is 5%. At a 5% conversion rate it will take 20 clicks to convert so the math would be.
$10(CPC) X 20 (conversion rate) = $200 Cost Per Conversion – With a $500 conversion value, that leaves you +$300 per conversion.
If your CPC was $20 then
$20(CPC) X 20 (conversion rate) = $400 Cost Per Conversion – With a $500 conversion value, that leaves you +$100 per conversion.
This type of analysis will help determine if generic search is right for you.
To sum it up:
For branded search, you should determine how competitive search is and how good your organic ranking is. If you are already top of page with no ad dollars spent, then you probably don’t need branded search.
For generic search, you need to research the average costs and determine if your conversion value will be worth it.
Hopefully this gives some insights into how you might evaluate and approach a search effort.
Remember each business is unique and the general rule may not apply to you. Testing and adjusting will always be the safest bet.
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