“Why should we pay for brand leads? We already rank in position 1 organically for our brand terms.”
It might be from your CMO or your contact that online shoe store you just signed, but whether you do in-house or agency paid search advertising, you’ve undoubtedly had this asked before (perhaps several times).
A couple of answers.
Without Paid Search, You Are Losing Clicks and Sales.
Yes, for brand terms, where you rank #1.
The AdWords agency team recently released notes on an experiment showing the value of paid search for those ranking competitively in natural search.
The experiment involved the clothing company Vineyard Vines, which feared it was paying for brand-related clicks it might have received anyway. They ultimately calculated they’d only replaced about 33% of their paid clicks with organic clicks, meaning the great majority of such clicks were completely lost by not running paid search campaigns.
And these brand clicks, they saw, were converting at over 5%.
The Secret Reason Goldman Sachs Loves Paid Search
Paid search advertising allows you to tightly control the content and prominence of your message, something not always possible when you’re relying solely on natural search.
Currently mired in a dramatically reported mortgage controversy, Goldman’s corporate site does not come up in position 1 naturally for “goldman sachs.” Nor does it appear in position 2, for that matter. Those positions are taken up by bad press.
Thankfully, they’ve read this post.
