Have You Been Branded?

Ryan Faria - February 2, 2009

When creating a search engine marketing campaign, many advertisers spend a majority of time selecting keywords relevant to their products and services, but very little time, if any at all, on creating a branding campaign.  A branding campaign utilizes the company name, website and/or trademarked terms as keywords.  A branding campaign can help create a ‘buzz’ about your company.  For example, when creating a branding campaign for ABC Company Washers and Dryers, you would want to select keywords that highlight your company’s core products and services; some potential keywords could be ‘ABC Company,’ ‘ABC Co.,’ ‘ABCcompany.com’ ‘ABC Company Washers’ or ‘ABC Company Dryers.’  Not only are branding types of keywords and phrases helpful when creating an online presence, they are often significantly less expensive and lead to higher conversion rates.

Another useful tactic when creating a branding campaign is to utilize your competitors’ keywords with your ad group.  By using the Google Keyword Tool  and entering your company name you can indentify related keywords and other businesses within your industry.  According to PPC Hero, if you decide to create a competitor campaign, do not use dynamic keyword insertion within your ad copy.  Using dynamic keyword insertion will cause the words entered in the search query to appear in your ad headline. The process of bidding on your competitor keywords is completely legitimate and search engines will not punish you for doing so.  However, you must not use competitor branded keywords within your ads. 

Using both branding and competitor campaigns not only creates brand recognition, but also, legitimizes your company by occupying more real estate within the search engines.  It is recommended to conduct the occasional search to see if there are competitors bidding on your company’s keywords.  Remember if you aren’t bidding on your keywords, someone else will.