If your on a tight SEM budget, why does this seem like a good idea?????

[craigh]

I'm still not convinced that spending money on your own name makes sense.
I know Google recommends it, but that's because it's free money for them.
Where most of my clients are, you wouldn't buy your competitors name explicitly, which means you're just buying your organic traffic at a premium.

 

[Alexander Lau]

I'm still not convinced that spending money on your own name makes sense.
I know Google recommends it, but that's because it's free money for them.
Where most of my clients are, you wouldn't buy your competitors name explicitly, which means you're just buying your organic traffic at a premium.

That's always bugged me as well. If a user searches for your name and they are unable to find your organic listing easily, well SHAME on you! Unless you have a really goofy brand or surname, then I could see the need for creating derivations on it.

Rather, use your competitors names.

 

[craigh]

That's always bugged me as well. If a user searches for your name and they are unable toi find your organic listing easily, well SHAME on you!

Rather, use your competitors names.

I just don't see it making sense.
If someone types in "Garber Chevrolet" you would think, based on all the evidence, that they're looking specifically for you.
So you're going to pay for them to click an ad, rather than trust that they can find your organic listing, even if there are other ads?

Would be interested to see traffic numbers by changing only the name purchases.
We did it with some dealers in Ottawa after they fired Reach(IntoYourWallet)Local - we cancelled the 62% of their spend that was on their own name and their traffic only went up after we re-allocated those funds to keywords that had competition, getting visitors we weren't already going to get.

 

[John Colascione]

.... there is some highway robbery going on out there. Transparency is golden.

This is why my agency charges a flat-fee and uses the dealers' account.
We do not hide the account activity in our 'agency account' or charge a percentage of spend looking for maximum spend.
True paid search transparency....

 

[Ryan Everson]

I'm still not convinced that spending money on your own name makes sense.
I know Google recommends it, but that's because it's free money for them.
Where most of my clients are, you wouldn't buy your competitors name explicitly, which means you're just buying your organic traffic at a premium.

Trust me, I wish I didn't have to and at some stores we don't. There are usually 2 scenarios where we run brand campaigns:

1. A competitor is bidding on our name which a) pisses off our managers and b) causes us to lose about 5% of our traffic that is searching for us by our brand name which is the most valuable and high converting traffic out there.

2. Our manufacturer is running a brand campaign for us that drives traffic to our sucky low converting OEM-mandated CDK sites which diverts 50% of our brand traffic to a poor performing website. I've fought tooth and nail to tell them we don't want this "service" but I can't get them to stop.

When you factor in that our average brand CPC is $0.24 across all of our accounts it's a fairly small price to pay to make sure our most valuable traffic lands on our highest converting website.

 

[Alexander Lau]

Trust me, I wish I didn't have to and at some stores we don't. There are usually 2 scenarios where we run brand campaigns:

1. A competitor is bidding on our name which a) pisses off our managers and b) causes us to lose about 5% of our traffic that is searching for us by our brand name which is the most valuable and high converting traffic out there.

2. Our manufacturer is running a brand campaign for us that drives traffic to our sucky low converting OEM-mandated CDK sites which diverts 50% of our brand traffic to a poor performing website. I've fought tooth and nail to tell them we don't want this "service" but I can't get them to stop.

When you factor in that our average brand CPC is $0.24 across all of our accounts it's a fairly small price to pay to make sure our most valuable traffic lands on our highest converting website.

Right, there is that. I mean the cost of your brand name is going to be really cheap.

 

[craigh]

OEM-mandated CDK sites

Say no more, friend.
I understand now.

 

[Ryan Everson]

I'm still not convinced that spending money on your own name makes sense.
Where most of my clients are, you wouldn't buy your competitors name explicitly, which means you're just buying your organic traffic at a premium.

Yeah we usually don't run campaigns targeting competitors because it's generally flushing money down the toilet. The only thing it's great for is boosting someone's ego.

We do however run competitor campaigns at our sub-prime dealerships because it's a great way to make our target customer aware that there is a better option to the XYZ buy here pay here they're searching for. We find these campaigns convert very well.

 

[Ryan Everson]

Say no more, friend.
I understand now.

Refer back to this post, I have a logical and informed reason for almost anything that someone could find

I love when a manager insists on having a vendor pitch us because they can never find anything meaningful to bash us on.

 

[Rick Buffkin]

I'm still not convinced that spending money on your own name makes sense.

@craigh With all the extensions now and Google removing the Right Hand rail and adding a 4th ad position, the organic results are getting pushed further down the page. Mobile is even worse! You have to buy your own name.

What I gather from all of you guys responses, it makes no sense at all to place the campaigns on an accelerated spend!