Brand Vs Nonbrand

Brand:

This is your revenue driver, these keywords will let you capture revenue of people who are already searching for your brand. These are typically your best performing keywords with low CPCs and high conversion rates. Also, if you bid on your own brand terms you’re making sure you show up at the top of search results for your business just in case a competitor decides to bid on your branded terms. 

Nonbrand:

This is your new customer exposure, these keywords will let you get your brand name in front of people who are searching for your product but not your brand specifically. These keywords are typically more expensive and don’t convert as regularly as branded terms. However, spending on nonbranded terms will eventually lead to revenue and new customers. I say eventually because most consumers research and make several searches before purchasing.

A Balanced Approach:

A consumers journey online is very fragmented, and will likely learn of your brand though your nonbrand terms and then later come back by searching for your brand and purchasing. That’s why it’s important to be present on both brand and nonbrand search terms.

We know this because of Google’s search path reporting as well as I have seen incrementality models at two very large retailers that I’ve worked for that support this knowledge (I’m not sure I can say exactly who for legal reasons but take a look at my LinkedIn and you can probably figure it out). These internal MMM models show quarter after quarter that incremental revenue and new customers are gained by spending more in nonbrand (even though conversions don’t necessarily show up in the platform as being attributed to nonbrand). Google tried to illustrate this fact through partial attribution in their DDA (data driven attribution) models but it’s much more useful if a company can stand up it’s own MTA or MMM model because it gives a better picture of how your media performs as a whole.

You should think of your branded paid media as your short term revenue driver and where you capture people who are willing to buy right away (some businesses think of branded searches akin to remarketing).Your nonbrand media is where you find new customers and grow your business in the long run.

An ideal budget split if you’re looking to grow your business would be 30% spend on branded terms and 70% on nonbranded terms.

Again, you want to take a balanced approach, using branded search to capture existing demand for your brand and defend your place at the top of the search results, while also investing in non-branded search to drive new customers to your website and expand your market share.