I’ve been quite cynical about ‘branding experts’. Maybe there’s a reason? Perhaps not. Are ‘branding experts’ the danger? No. Brand danger is a thought on the brand term being used in digital marketing.
What do I Mean by Brand Danger?
Your business brand name is a shortcut and a signpost. “What were they called again?” A familiar refrain. “Great, I’ll Google them.” This is where the brand danger comes in.
It’s your brand, your business and you wish to promote and maintain a reputation.
Google and many digital marketers will say that you must bid on your brand terms (and variations) to protect your brand. I understand the thought behind that. But you see Google Ads will report on the amount of conversions for the brand term and all looks profitable.
Are you throwing money away? Would you get that traffic, lead, sale or subscription anyway?
I would say yes.
I see no harm in testing it now and then. BUT when someone is searching for your brand term THEY KNOW YOU. It’s your traffic and Google Ads should not be taking the credit for all your other activities, like content, social, events, PR etc.
Affiliate Black Hat ‘Marketing’
All affiliate networks ban the affiliate for bidding on brand terms. Quite rightly. Black Hat stuff includes affiliates bidding on your terms out of office hours. Came across this a couple of times when working late for a personalised gift merchant AND a perfectly cloned copy of the merchant’s website. If black does it then that shows how profitable the brand term will be.
Brand Term Fix
Anyone can bid on your brand terms as a keyword in Google Ads. You can also do this with Amazon Ads. Would I? No. Why? The searcher is looking for that brand, they are using the shortcut/signpost. I’ve created campaigns in Amazon on competitor’s brand terms. The result? A waste of time. Because the searcher is looking for that brand, they are likely existing customers or heard good things. So, why would they change to your brand?
The only answer here is to trial a promotion with a time limitation.
Google Search Console Tracking
You’ll see your brand terms captured in Google Search Console and the variations. Track them because you’ll have an idea of the word-of-mouth for your brand term. WOM is the most powerful form of marketing and you should be working on improving this as a metric on a monthly basis.
Damn it! I promised myself not to use the word ‘metric’ in this post!
Anyway, track brand terms in the Search Console, especially after a PR piece has gone out or your business has attended an event.
Handy Hint
You can filter in the Search Console for keywords AND pages. You can see which page is attracting the queries.
You can also do a sum of click rate for the query.
You can also cross-reference with Google Analytics to get a (very) rough idea of how engaging the page is.
The above will provide ideas for actions to convert more of this ‘traffic with intent.’
Be wary of brand danger, and be active in using this information to improve profit.
Amen,
About Conversion Detectives
Conversion Detectives is a full-service digital marketing agency in Hertfordshire.
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