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Why is Branded Traffic Really Important?
December 1, 2022
11 min
One of the frequently asked questions from clients is: “Why do you need contextual advertising for branded queries today if there is organic traffic?”.
Obviously, businesses are constantly looking for opportunities to decrease expenditures. However, consider that such an “economy” not only results in profit loss but also causes additional reputational risks.
What is branded traffic meaning? Why you shouldn’t turn off branded traffic? Which PPC tools are effective today? We have covered all questions with the PPC management department of Promodo.
Branded traffic is a term used in digital marketing to describe the stream of visitors to a website who arrive by directly typing in keywords that specifically reference the brand or company. This typically includes the brand's name, ensuring a direct association between the search query and the business in question. For instance, when users enter the company's name as a keyword in a search engine, and subsequently land on the website, the resulting traffic is categorized as branded traffic.
When increasing the branded traffic, one of the most important points is the behavior of users for brand queries. They have less need for background information about the company or the product. Their priority is the possibility of a quick transaction. This is a good reason to scale the budget for contextual advertising.
According to Insider Intelligence, spending on search advertising in the United States will reach $111.80 billion next year, which is twice as much as in 2019.
Another common counterargument from our clients is “Our site is in the first position in the organic search results even without paid advertising for brand requests. Why shall we spend more?” Really, what’s the point of paying for ads that compete with free organic search results? Let’s figure it out.
Branded paid traffic cannot be replaced by organic traffic. In 2011, published research proved the point with statistical data.
89% of clicks from paid traffic are incremental. They influence other channels and are impossible without an advertising campaign. Organic traffic partially takes this traffic but does not cover it completely.
ThinkwithGoogle published similar statistics for mobile devices:
“We have conducted a test disabling/enabling branded paid traffic. As a result, with enabled advertising campaigns for the brand, turnover became higher by 4-38%. The lowest rates of loss were either for little-known brands or for popular ones. That is why a minimum of 4% of the money was lost without branded traffic”. Anna Tarasova, Team Lead of the PPC Management Department at Promodo.
Hence, if you are not a market leader or a unique product or service, then the complete transition from paid traffic to organic traffic with minimal losses is impossible.
In addition to the loss of traffic, disabling branded search ads also significantly affects search engine rankings and causes reputational risks.
What to expect after disabling paid branded traffic?
Prospects for Branded Traffic. Effectiveness of PPC Campaigns in 2022. Branded Traffic and Market Newcomers
Speed and ease are important now. The case when the customer has to make too many steps to find the right site is a failure. Without contextual advertising, the site will appear less and less on the first page of SERP. As a result, it will cause a drop in traffic, and lead to a decrease in sales. In addition, the amount of data about users will reduce, which will affect the collection and use of remarketing lists. Hence, brand loyalty will suffer as well.
Top position is associated with market leadership. If a competitor is ready to “pay” for the brand requests, unlike you, probably your competitors will have the opportunity to increase their visibility and improve their position.
“If you turn off contextual advertising for brand queries, but the site still remains at the organic top of the page, you need to check your competitors. Look at the Google Search Console queries whether there are any competitors behind them or other positions. It is worth checking for errors and requests like “Category + brand” because other market players will start to appear by category”. Anna Tarasova, Team Lead of the PPC Management Department at Promodo
When there are no competitors or requests for other brands in SERP, newcomers need to consider all other possible search cases for the brand, for example with errors. You can not remember the name of the site from the first time. Plus, no requests—no expenditures.
For example, take a look at the comparison of the number of requests for sports goods in terms of store brand and product/category requests in the scheme below. If you are a new market entrant, category search is an additional source for increasing the visibility of your store. It ensures the same conditions as competitors.
However, the nature of queries in trade/category and brand campaigns is quite different. You can download the search queries that show your ads and compare them to keywords in your brand campaigns.
Today, the same audience amount can be reached twice cheaper than in 2021. Due to the lack of competition in the market, the value of branded traffic has decreased significantly. Thanks to this, the business today can spend 60% of the budget, receiving 90% of the income (compared to the previous year).
Does Paid Branded Traffic Make Sense in 2022? Certainly. If the profit decreases, boost the knowledge about your brand.
For the branded traffic improvement, we recommend using both Performance Max and Value-Based Bidding.
Usually, these types of advertising campaigns perform well. It contains brand requests by default. The type of campaigns depends on the business and niche.
Check out what impressive results we’ve managed to reach with Performance Max for the omnichannel retailer of household appliances and electronics, Eldorado.
Using Value-Based Bidding allows you to appear in the auction based on conversion signals about a future purchase or a higher conversion value, no matter what competitors do.
Regarding other tools, media communication remains the main one. A good media flight with an interesting idea will ensure an increase in profit. Also, don’t forget about the importance of the Google category and Shopping tools.
“In order to increase the effectiveness of business campaigns, adjust brand traffic to the current goals that affect optimization. In addition, improve the same things as in other search campaigns: conversions, strategies, bids, keywords, etc.” Anna Tarasova, Team Lead of the PPC Management Department at Promodo.
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