Comment by calbear81 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by calbear81 | Hacker News Reader

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This study (http://searchengineland.com/google-research-even-if-you-rank...) is a bit old and possibly biased (since sponsored by Google) but when I worked in SEM the experience we had was the same which was the top organic position + the top paid position netted overall more traffic to our site than with just the organic position alone. The other considerations are:

1) Brand SEM terms are cheap - if you own the brand, especially something like Squarespace, your ad will have a high quality score and will thus pay a much lower CPC than a competitor trying to vie for eyeballs with your brand name as a keyword. This means that brand terms generally are pretty cheap to buy.

2) Real estate ownership - The more real estate on the page you own the more click share you will get. This will keep other organic listings from getting click share which may mean your competitors will get less traffic off of searches for you.

3) Control over message - Ads provide a high degree of creative control which means you can change the copy and also add on Ad Extensions like sitelinks, app download buttons, "click to call" buttons, etc. These are all things that are harder to control on your organic listing.

This reflects the core argument to do this...but the truth is more subtle. Agencies and in house SEM teams are inherently biased to want to spend on brand terms because a) they can attribute more sales to their channel and b) Justify more spend which equals more revenue for most agencies...

I am not discounting the validity of the argument to bid on brand terms and I bid on brand terms for most of my clients...but I always disclose this inherent bias before making a recommendation...

In truth, every brand should test for themselves how it impacts their bottom line and if protecting their brand is worth the spend...

------ The cynical voice in my head thinks that most digital advertising today is really ad tech companies hijacking revenue that brands earned already...and if not for competitors using that same tech, no one really needs it... (i.e. remarketing, custom audiences, branded search, first party data, etc...)

In reality, I actively spend my clients money on these tactics and congratulate myself on the results I generate for them... but in the back of my mind I am waiting for the ad tech bubble to burst and media companies disappearing and being replaced by branded content, content marketing, etc...

Edit:spelling

It's (a) all the way down. The expression is robbing Peter to pay Paul - we've even tested it - while running ads on branded keywords does increase clicks, it increases the CPA from zero to potentially pricey. The net benefit is so-so, and if the client doesn't understand that they're cannibalising their organic traffic you have a problem - I.e. 99% of the time.

The only reason I've ever witnessed is SEO/M ego rubbing, and the conversations usually go:

"we are spending more than our monthly revenue on brand ppc ads!"

"But you cover the entire first page of Google for your terms, branded and product. Turn the ads off."

"But all our traffic cones through the ads!"

"That's because you're swamping your organic terms."

"Oh gee, I don't know, worm-tongue SEO/M-master, what do I do?"

"Spend more money with my PPC agency! We know more about web development then web developers, we studied drama and literature. And we have a certificate from google saying we're good webmasters. Do your development agency?"

If you are so sure of yourself, model it.

http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2016/04/21/compare-actual-vs...

https://google.github.io/CausalImpact/CausalImpact.html

Because some of the people who studied marketing did not sleep through their econometric classes.

>we studied drama and literature.

The horror.

I've worked with companies before that only gave credit for a fraction of revenue/orders driven by brand terms. They did a study on what % of brand SEM terms were cannibalizing against the organic listing and only gave credit for what they believed to be accretive.

I can just as easily argue that branded search closes the sale at the bottom of the funnel and that generic search contributes to that sale...so without multi click attribution in the mix, its not fair to give credit to organic for cannibalized sales...etc... my point is really that there is room to argue both ways and without advanced attribution...someone somewhere is not getting the credit they earned.

That would be an intelligent way of doing it - most refuse to see the cannibalisation, however, and demand a purely cumulative effect, which results in unhappiness all around.

The cannibalization is a bit of a catch-22. If you don't have paid ads on SERPs where you rank high organically, of course all your traffic will come from the organic results. But if you don't take the top paid spot, your competitor can -- and then they're "cannibalizing" your organic results.

Great explanation - I'll add two things.

1. If you're not there, someone else is. If Nike didn't buy brand terms, adidas would and would steal tons of customers.

2. Paid results (and other results like maps, shopping, etc) often push organic results below the fold so no one sees them. You need to be above the fold.

Lol, so it's extortion by google? Superb model!

1. I don't think that you can buy ads using other company's trademark. It's against Adwords policy.

TS using "Squarespace" as example, not "web shop".

This is incorrect. You certainly can buy competitor trademarks as keywords. You are only restricted from using them in ad copy.

Source: https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/6118?hl=en

Can bid on keywords, you just can't use trademarked terms in ad copy.

Google loves branded Kws on Adwords. Bidding on competitors will have a low quality score, but drives up the competition for the brand owner. With all of the above the fold distractions, you basically have to pay if you want to be above the fold.

Just to add what's said above, it will also help prevent a competitor using your brand as a keyword.

And your ad agency will be fired when that happens. It is therefore a must buy.

I work in an industry where branded terms are EXTREMELY expensive and I've spent the last year and a half looking for ways to build better heuristics on how marketing actually works. I am extremely skeptical of media agencies and all parties relating to marketing spend, even those who want to measure it in their own "scientific" manner.

From attending conferences it doesn't seem like anyone is really on the ball with attribution reporting. The best thing you can do for marketing analytics is implement rigorous and scientific experiments, which require massive buy in. If anyone wants to discuss this or work towards a solution send me an email (in profile.)

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