What I suggested My Client, Whether to Bid on the Brand & Competitors Terms in Google Ads - Should You Target Brand & Competitors Terms in Your Google Ad Campaign?

I was working on, one of my Google ad client from last 1 year, where I manage the outside campaigns work (Not the actual campaign work like choosing keywords, bidding etc.).

Basically, client manage all of his stuff by himself and I used to manage stuff such as reporting, setting up new campaigns using the instructions given by him, optimizations etc. Where, I've extensive experience in Digital Marketing but client doesn't want me to do any work internally on the campaigns as because he wanted to manage himself.

One day I decided to think over it and prepare a plan for client to tell him that whether we should bid on the brand names and competitors. So, this is what I explain him:I usually analyse the search term report of the client's Google ad campaign where I always see most of the clicks getting from brand terms and then competitors names still I see some conversions.

Purpose: To improve Google ad campaign performance (conversions)

Overview: Spending most of the Google ad campaign budget on brand keywords and competitors. 

Concern/Details: Recommendations for the Google ads campaign. 

As you know that we've low conversion rate (And lower conversion rate as compare to Facebook) and we're already doing the things which we should do to get conversions right.

What i was thinking about is, if we look on the search term report for any of the campaign, there you'll see that we're spending most of the overall Google ad campaign's budget first on brand keywords (Client business name such as 'Jasper's Orthodontist') then competitor’s brand names and rest on target relevant keywords and other.

Same way, we're getting conversions first from the brand keywords then competitor’s brand names and rest from the target relevant keywords and other keywords.

That means, we're spending most money to show our ad on the brand name, competitors and after that target relevant keywords and other keywords.
So, there are chances that the most of the ad campaign budget is reaching out after showing ad on brand name, competitors and we can't reach and spend our overall budget to main target keywords (Such as 'Orthodontist', ‘Orthodontist near me’). If we test to run some campaigns separately first for brand names, competitor’s etc. So, we can figure out if we can get more conversions by spending more money on the relevant target keywords not the brand names and competitor’s terms.

For Example: The client Jasper's Orthodontist has total of 857 clicks, 87 conversions at the cost of $4,939.47 from 25 March 2019 to 23 March 2019 and we got conversions as follows - 

• Brand Keywords Conversions - 65
• Relevant Keywords Conversions (Including Brand Names) - 72
• Relevant Keywords Conversions (Without Brand Names) - 5
• Irrelevant Keywords Conversions (Mostly Competitors Brand Names) = 16

What my point is, we've about 65 conversions on brand keywords (In the given time frame) but why we need to target brand names? If user type brand related keywords on Google then the client website will appear on number 1 by organic results (If other ads doesn't appear) and if a user is searching for brand name then probably the user will visit the client website. 

So, whether the ad shows up on the brand names or not, most probably user will go to the client site. 

Secondly, if user is searching brand name, that doesn't mean they will convert, they may visit the site to see phone number, timings, details etc. (On the time period of report: We got estimated of 258 Google ad clicks out of 851 on brand name keywords but only converted 65, which can be also converted via organic results if we don't bid on brand names).

That means, we're wasting our budget on bidding brand keywords and we can use this budget for other target keywords (Such as ‘Orthodontist’, ‘Orthodontist near me’) which can bring more conversions. But yes, we should test this first before we decide to stop bidding on brand name keywords.

Second, we're spending (Getting clicks) more money (After brand keywords) on the competitor’s brand names. (Note: We’re not targeting competitor’s brand names but we’re getting clicks because of using broad match type keywords.) Probably, if a user is searching for competitor’s brand name then they’ll visit the competitor’s website in most cases not client site but still we’ve very few conversions (16 conversions out of 857 clicks via competitor’s brand names). In the campaign search term report of any client, we’ve huge clicks on competitor brand name keywords we’ve few conversions but the most budget is wasted.

This is why, we should test few campaigns whether we should use competitor brand name related terms as negative keywords (To prevent ad on competitor terms) or not. 

Solution/Plan of Action: Basically, what I want to explain through this report is, almost all of our client campaign budget is spending first on brand keywords, then competitor’s related keywords and if the budget remain then it’s targeting to the main keywords. But, goal is to target main keywords (Keywords like ‘Orthodontist’, ‘Orthodontist near me’ etc.) not the brand or competitors terms.

There are chances that we can get more conversions from the main target keywords but the campaign can’t reach over to those keywords because the most budget is spending on the brand or competitors. Generally, the user who’re searching for brand name will be visit the client site whether they see Google ad or not (Most cases) and the user who’re searching for competitor’s related keywords will be visit the competitor site (Most cases) but we’re not targeting the right user who’re searching for the right keywords such as braces, orthodontist, orthodontist near me etc. 

I would recommend that we should test some campaigns as follows with the two options (Plan A and Plan B): 

Plan - A

1. Main Campaign – Using exact match keywords for main target keywords (Excluding brand names and competitors).
2. Current Running Campaign- We’ll continue with the current running campaign until we run and test the first campaign. 

Plan - B

1. Main Campaign – Using exact match keywords for main target keywords (Excluding brand names and competitors).
2. Brand keywords – Running campaign using brand related terms.
3. Competitors - Running campaign using competitors related terms.
4. Current Running Campaign- We’ll continue with the current running campaign until we run and test the first campaign. 

This way, we’ll figure out that how we can bring more conversions for all the clients. We can simply measure that whether we should run separate campaigns for Main campaign, Brand and Competitors. And, whether we can bring more leads via general target keywords and start excluding brand names and competitors terms. 

If you check the search term report, if your search term report is full of competitors names and brand names, then it's not right!

• thomnell springville orthodontics (Competitor brand term)
• trapnell orthodontics springville utah (Competitor brand term)
• thompson orthodontics (Competitor brand term)
• canyon creek orthodontics (Competitor brand term)
• Jasper's orthodontist (Brand term)
• Jasper's ortho (Brand term)

Whether, the search term report, should be like –

• braces
• orthodontist
• orthodontist near me
• orthodontist near me for braces 

(Keywords, with the full of service related keywords)

That means, we should focus on the users who’re searching the service related target keywords. We don’t needed to bid on brand terms but we can run separate low cost campaign if needed. Same way, we don’t needed to bid on competitors terms but we can run separate low cost campaign if needed. This way, our focus will be on the service related target keywords. 

So, this is the actual Google ad campaign recommendations report for client where I've explained him how to manage with the brand and competitors terms in Google campaign in non-technical language. 

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