Category: Google Ads, SEO Management
Search for your business by name on Google and you’ll probably see your own website near the top of the free results. So why would you pay for an advert to appear above it?
It’s a fair question, and one plenty of business owners ask when they look at their Google Ads account and see money being spent on searches for their own name. Sometimes it really is wasted money. Sometimes it’s one of the most sensible things in the account. The trick is knowing which.
What “bidding on your brand” means
When someone types your business name into Google, that’s called a brand search. If you have your business name as a keyword in Google Ads, your advert can appear for those searches, usually right at the top of the page, above your free listing.
Brand clicks tend to be cheap, because you’re the most relevant advertiser for your own name, and they tend to convert well, because the person was already looking for you. That’s why they often make an account’s figures look very healthy. It’s also why it’s worth asking whether those people would have found you anyway.
The case against
The main argument against is simple. If someone searches for “Smith & Sons Builders Salisbury”, they’ve already decided they want you. Your website is probably the first free result, your Google Business Profile is probably showing on the right or in the map, and they’re going to find you whether you pay or not.
In that situation, paying for the click can mean paying for a visitor you’d have got for free. On a small budget, that money might do more good on searches from people who haven’t heard of you yet.
It can also make your Google Ads results look better than they are. If a big share of your conversions come from people searching your name, the account looks like it’s working brilliantly, when really it’s just catching people who were coming to you anyway.
The case for
There are good reasons to bid on your own name too, and for some businesses they win.
The biggest one is competitors. In the UK, other businesses are generally allowed to use your business name as a keyword in their own adverts. That means if someone searches for you, a competitor’s advert can appear above your free listing. If that’s happening, not having your own advert at the top means handing them a chance to win a customer who was looking for you.
Then there’s control. With an advert, you choose exactly what people see: your current offer, your opening hours, a link straight to the page they’re most likely to want, your phone number. Your free listing shows whatever Google picks from your website.
Space on the page matters too, especially on a phone. Above your free listing there may be adverts, a map, AI-generated answers and other features. An advert makes sure the first thing someone sees when they search your name is you.
And if your business name is a common word or shared with another business, such as a name that’s also a place or a type of product, your free listing may not be as dominant as you’d expect. In that case, an advert helps people find the right business.
How to decide
The best way to decide is to look at what actually happens when people search for your name.
Search for your business on your phone, from a few different places if you can, and look at the whole page. Do competitors’ adverts appear? Is your website the first thing below them? Is your Google Business Profile showing? If nobody else is advertising on your name and you dominate the page, you have a reasonable case for not bothering, or at least for keeping the spend very low.
If competitors do appear, or the page is crowded, bidding on your name is usually worth the small cost.
You can also test it. Pause your brand campaign for a few weeks and watch what happens to your total enquiries, not just the ones Google Ads reports. If they stay the same, the brand spend wasn’t adding much. If they drop, you have your answer. It’s not a perfect experiment, because other things change too, but it’s much better than guessing.
Keep brand and non-brand separate
If you do bid on your own name, keep it in its own campaign with its own budget. That way it can’t take money away from the campaigns that are finding new customers, and you can see clearly how well each part of your account is really doing.
This matters more if you use Performance Max or broad match keywords, which can pick up brand searches without you realising. Check your search terms report regularly, and exclude your brand from other campaigns if it’s creeping in.
What if a competitor is using your name in their ad text?
Using your business name as a keyword is one thing. Writing it into the advert itself, so the ad reads as though it’s yours, is another. If you have a registered trade mark and a competitor is using it in their advert text, Google has a process for trade mark complaints. If it’s simply a competitor bidding on your name as a keyword, there usually isn’t much you can do apart from making sure your own advert appears above theirs.
The short answer
If nobody else is advertising on your name and your website and profile already dominate the page, brand bidding is often optional. If competitors are there, it’s usually a small price for protecting customers who were already looking for you. Either way, keep it separate, check it regularly and make it a decision rather than something left running by default.
As we said in our post on getting the most out of your PPC, it’s worth thinking about whether Google’s suggestions are really in your interest. Brand bidding is a good example of where the answer depends entirely on your own situation.
If you’d like someone to look at whether brand bidding makes sense for your business, the friendly, experienced team at Spire Digital manage pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns for businesses in Salisbury and the surrounding area. Give us a call on 01722 320 500.