It's not uncommon for managers to want to switch off a branding campaign when they rank at the top of the page organically. It doesn't make sense to them that they would also pay for per click for their ad to appear in the number one position. The idea to save money or allocate it to other campaigns is appealing. However running brand campaigns has its benefits, and we recommend running one.

We take a look at why brand campaigns are important in your Google Ads mix.

Why Run Branded Campaigns When You're Performing Well Organically?

Here are our top 5 reasons why you should advertise on your own brand names.

1. Your Competitor Will

In 2008 Google lifted the ban on competitor bidding, so it's now common practice to bid on competitor's terms (often referred to as brandjacking). You are all trying to get in front of the same audience, so it makes sense that you would do this.

If you don't run branded campaigns, you run the risk of a competitor being in the number #1 position. So even if you appear heavily below in organic results, a shiny big ad at the top of the page is going to be noticed first. If that's not you, then the competitor can take your share of valuable traffic and you can very easily lose the lead.

While you can't stop competitor brand bidding on your keywords, you can stop them from mentioning your brand name, especially if it's trademarked, or if the ad misleads searchers. Google's policy about Trademarks and using competitor brand names in messaging is outlined here.

The more you own the search page, the better. So investing in brand campaigns will help you own the page (paid and organic) and also help push your competitor further and further down the page. This strategy works well on mobile, where you want to be found at the top, and then dominating the first few scrolls.

It's important to protect your brand name by running your own brand campaigns.

2. Control The Message

Leaving it to Google to control the SERP on organic results means you've lost some control. Google's results are based on providing the best user experience. Google will try to understand the search intent and provide search results that best match that query. But they don't always get it right.

If you want to have control over what the searcher finds, paid brand campaigns allows you control the ad and creative. This is especially relevant when you have promotions, sales or special offers where you can tweak messaging and get that relevant message in front of leads.

This is where paid search Ad Extensions are invaluable. Sitelinks, Call Outs, Call, Review and Structures Snippets are our go-to ad extensions. It allows your ad to move from being a simple 1-2 line ad to a bulky ad where the user can click different links to get to a relevant page on your website.

It’s important to protect your brand name by having control of the message and creative.

3. You Get Better Organic Results

Having a paid ad at the top of your organic search results has been proven to show that it will drive 89% of incremental traffic and improve lead conversion. You can find more on that study here.

It’s important to protect your brand name by having a presence in paid and organic search.

4. It Improves Your Quality Score

Branded keywords are highly relevant to a search query, the ad messaging and your website.  Google knows that the user intent will be satisfied when it delivers that ad, so it rewards you by giving you a high quality score.

It’s important to protect your brand name, keep your account healthy and optimised for search.

5. Brand Terms are Cheap

People searching with intent and clicking on cheap brand terms is a win-win. However, it's also cheap for your competitors. So if you're not running a brand campaign, but your competitor is running your brand terms, they will be getting cheap clicks at your expense.  And this works both ways. If any of your competitors have forgotten to run a brand campaign, then it's cheap clicks for you to capitalise on their brand terms.

It's good to keep in mind, that a brand campaign typically only takes between 5-10% of the monthly budget. This can vary amongst accounts, but if you're still unsure about the value of a brand campaign then allocate a small fraction of the budget to keep competitor attacks in check.

It’s important to protect your brand name and take advantage of cheap clicks.

If you're investing long term on Google Ads, having a brand campaign will keep your account healthy and give you advantage over competitors. Being ahead of your competitors means you're ahead on securing quality leads and sales.