Branded Search Campaigns: When to Invest and When to Skip

TL;DR

While branded search campaigns are often considered essential, they’re not right for every business. This guide uses real case studies to show when these campaigns drive value (in competitive industries, for tailored offers, or cases of brand confusion) versus waste budget (with strong organic rankings, limited funds, or unique brand names). Learn how to evaluate your branded campaigns’ true impact and get actionable implementation guidelines.

Key finding: Many businesses overspend on branded search, capturing conversions that would have happened organically.

Introduction

‘Always bid on your brand terms’ is a rule heralded by PPC marketers for over a decade. There are blogs and more blogs making this assertion. But with rising CPCs and sophisticated organic search engines, is this still good advice? In certain cases, blindly following this convention could be costing you thousands in unnecessary ad spend.

This guide, with real performance data, will help you determine if branded search campaigns are truly driving incremental value for your business.

When to use branded search campaigns

There are still cases where brand campaigns are a strategic tactic. These could include:

Regardless of use case, a few things are consistent across all:

Case study – When to use a branded search campaign

For a full review of the data, see my CDP marketing strategy case study.

Background

A B2B company with two main services lines is looking to expand their acquisition of qualified leads to demo their products. The industry is very competitive making clicks for non-branded keywords very expensive (avg CPC: $30-100).

As a result, they faced challenges scaling up non-brand search on a $40k monthly media budget. Additionally, fierce competition and a crowded industry meant they weren’t always considered, so getting into the conversation was important.

Approach

To expand brand awareness and consideration for their products, the brand runs ads on LinkedIn targeting companies in their ICP with job titles of decision makers. This drives high quality traffic at a much more cost-effective rate (avg. CPC: $0.90).

In conjuction, a branded search campaign targets the company name, as well as the company name + service lines offered. A Target CPA bid model was used to ensure high intent traffic (see How Google’s Ad Auction System) was delivered specific messaging and relevant service-specific landing pages.

Results

Over the course of the 3 month test, they drove a 475% increase in qualified leads compared to the previous 3-month period.

These leads showed a strong correlation with LinkedIn engagement. Search interest spiked for brand + service keywords that matched our LinkedIn article topics, suggesting the LinkedIn Ads influenced search behavior

Conclusion

Without a brand campaign, traffic would have gone to the homepage, which lacked both an above-the-fold form and specific service information users were searching for. While some leads might have converted anyway, the branded campaign let us accurately measure the impact through specific search queries.

When not to use branded search campaigns

Contrary to the established best practices, branded search campaigns are not always necessary. A few possible arguments are:

While these would predicate not using a branded search campaign, here’s a few things to avoid if running a branded search campaign:

Takeaway: Don’t spend money on traffic that would be acquired for free anyway unless you are providing or capturing incremental value.

Thought experiment

You are in-market to buy new furniture. To start your research, you search ‘new couches’ and are presented with options in Google Shopping, as well as large and local retailers selling hundreds of couches.

You click on a few listings and websites and browse your options. Eventually, you find one you like, but need to consult with your partner before making the purchase. You both decide this is the couch for you, and you’re ready to buy.

Only at this point do you Google the brand of the retailer you decided to buy from. If that retailer were running a branded search campaign, you would likely click on their ad vs. their organic listing since the ad is at the top of the page.

Does this change whether you would have made the purchase? No. It simply costs the retailer more money to convert a sale that would have occurred anyway. This situation occurs in more industries and purchase decisions than would first appear.

Case study – When not to use branded search campaigns

Background

A B2C home improvement company sells products ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars, making each purchase a carefully researched decision rather than an impulse buy. They run multi-channel paid ads to build awareness, educate consumers, and generate leads—a process that typically spans 3 months.

While most of their Google and Bing Ads budget goes to non-branded search, bringing in dozens of weekly leads, their branded search campaign drives the majority of leads. This is a common pattern in search advertising

Test

A test was run to reduce branded search campaign spend by 80% over a two-week period. During this time, reallocated brand spend was instead pushed into non-branded keywords. The expectation was that brand campaign leads would decrease, but not in line with the decrease in spend.

Results

The results were surprising. While impressions and clicks decreased by about 40%, conversions only decreased by 14%. Traffic cost was also significantly reduced with CPCs and cost per new visit to the site reduced by about 50%.

The real kicker, organic conversions were up by 29%. Instead of losing leads, investing more in acquisition tactics increased total lead volume.

Conclusion

Branded search campaign effectiveness varies dramatically based on your business context – while effective in competitive industries with complex purchase journeys, they’re not the automatic choice they once were.

With consistently rising ad costs and increased competition, it’s important to:

Successful paid search strategies treat branded campaigns as utility, not as a mandatory component. By understanding how people actually buy your product or service, you can make informed decisions about when and how to leverage branded search effectively.