Screen Glare

So, you want to know a secret?

A few weeks ago i unexpectedly and unintentionally was able to view the Google Adwords performance of over two dozen sites. They ranged from technology sites to home and garden to clothing. Some of the sites were even generating weekly revenues in excess of $4 Million per week through Google Adwords. Although the sites varied in size, niche, budgets, and revenues, one thing remained the same; their brand name keywords were not only the highest converting, but they were generating more then 50% of the sites total revenue generated through Google Adwords.

That’s right brand name keywords. Brand name. That necessary evil, that investment with no directly measureable ROI, was the primary reason behind these sites success or failure with Google AdWords. I wish I could have ethically taken screenshots to show here, but your just going to have to take my word for it.

So What Does This Mean For You?

Well a few things.

1. Branding Works - Yes, branding works, so you should invest in it and build a brand name for you, your company, and more importantly your site.
2. If Your Not Buying Branded Keywords, You Better Start - Buy them now, before your competitor reads this and starts buying yours.
3. People Searching For Your Company, Not the Products You Sell Convert the Best - If they are looking for your site, especially if you primarily sell “things” chances are users know this and are going to with intent to buy. Users searching for a specific product might just as well be looking for product information, reviews, and other ancillary data as they are searching with the intent to buy. I guess broad keyword phrases can work well.
4. Brand Name Success Masks Overall Google Adwords Performance - If you were to take away the brand name keyword campaigns, there overall performance stunk. There is great opportunity to beat your larger, more established, more well known competitors by paying attention to product specifc and “long tail” campaigns that are defensive in nature (to prevent no buying users).
5. Study Your Campaigns - From the outside many of the Google Adwords campaigns were doing awesome, but when you took out the performance of the brand name campaigns, the overall Google Adwors campaign did not look so hot. Why? These companies were only looking at the big picture. Had they drilled down and taken a closer look, they very well could have been doing twice as well.

Take Advantage of the Brand Name Affect

Take advantage of the affect brand name has on Google Adwords performance, by maximize the points addressed above. Build your brand name, drill-down and build your product specific and long-tail keywords campaigns. Never bank your success one just one element. You might be doing well, but maybe you could be doing even better.