Your Branded Search Spend Is Probably Too High

Digital Marketing / July 02, 2025

Let’s get one thing straight: bidding on your own brand term in Google Ads isn’t a bad thing.

But, if your paid media results hinge on people already knowing your name, you’re not really “advertising.” You’re just showing up to your own party and paying for the drinks…

And yet, at Bloom, we regularly take over accounts where 70%, 80%, even 90% of ad spend is going toward branded keywords. The results might look good (low CPCs, high conversion rates, “efficient” ROAS), but dig deeper and you’ll find a campaign that’s stuck in neutral, quietly draining growth potential.

Let’s talk about it.

Branded vs. Non-Branded Keywords

Branded keywords are what people search when they already know who you are. They’re looking for “iPhone 16” or “Nike Air Max 97.” With these search queries, there is built-in trust, higher intent, and shorter conversion paths. That’s why branded campaigns often look great on paper.

Non-branded keywords are where the real growth opportunity lives. These terms like “top marketing agencies” or “best running shoes” represent earlier stages in the funnel, where discovery, education, and comparison happen. They also tend to be more competitive, harder to win, and more expensive to convert.

But guess what? If you’re not playing in that space, you’re not growing. You’re just collecting low-hanging fruit, over and over, until one day it’s gone.

The healthiest Search campaigns and Performance Max campaigns find the right balance between branded and non-branded, between defending their turf and expanding their reach.

Should You Bid on Your Own Brand Keywords in Google Ads?

Let’s get this out of the way: most of the time, yes, you should bid on your brand, and here’s why.

The Pros of Bidding On Your Own Brand

1. Organic Search Rarely Wins the Top Spot

Your organic ranking isn’t guaranteed to show up first—especially on mobile, where ads take up the majority of the screen real estate. If you’re not bidding on your name, even a strong SEO presence can be pushed below the fold. That’s visibility you’re losing, often without realizing it.

2. Competitors Are Probably Bidding on Your Name

Search engines like Google allow bidding on competitor keywords, as long as they’re not pretending to be you. So when someone searches your company and sees competitor ads first, you’re not just losing a potential customer. You’re letting someone else shape the narrative.

3. Branded Search Gives You Full Control Over Messaging

When you bid on your brand, you control what shows up: the headline, the offer, the links, the landing page. You can highlight a promo, point users to high-converting pages, and make sure your messaging aligns with your current priorities. You’re not just showing up… you’re showing up with intent.

Take the example below: a potential customer searches for “Samsonite,” and sure enough, Samsonite is running branded ads with promotional messaging: 20% off select styles, free shipping, and sitelinks to product categories. But right underneath? Monos, a competitor, is bidding on the Samsonite keyword and running a bold, direct response ad: “Why We Beat Samsonite.” If Samsonite wasn’t bidding on their own name, that Monos ad could easily be the top (or only) result.

But here’s the catch: branded search shouldn’t eat up your budget. The goal isn’t to dominate your own name. It’s to defend it, efficiently, while putting real investment into actual growth channels.

The Bloom PPC Strategy to Branded Keywords

At Bloom, we audit dozens of Google Ads accounts every year that fall into the same trap: over-reliance on branded search. 

Not because someone sat down and decided, “Let’s blow 90% of our budget on people who already know us.” But because broad match keywords, Performance Max, and automation default to what’s easy, and brand terms convert easily.

It’s rarely intentional. But when you leave everything wide open, Google will lean hard on what performs “best” in the short term. And that usually means brand.

Our job is to rebalance that equation.

We keep branded search in place where it makes sense (especially if it’s under threat), but we dramatically reduce over-allocation. That freed-up budget gets reinvested into higher-funnel tactics that drive awareness, acquisition, and long-term growth.

We also pair branded search with our SEO efforts. Because if you’re paying for 90% of your brand traffic, what exactly is your organic strategy doing?

And we’ve seen this shift pay off. Big time.

Branded Keywords Case Studies

First example, we had this home decor client come to us right before Q4, setting up for the biggest retail period of the year. When I audited their account, I estimated that 90% of their Google spend was going towards branded terms. 90%!

Despite attempts to exclude these terms using negative keywords, the effort wasn’t effective, leading to wasted budget. In the month we took over, we broke a chain of 13 consecutive months of negative year-over-year growth by shifting the strategy away from heavy reliance on brand terms. This change allowed the brand to better capture new, high-intent customers during the holiday season, leading to a significant improvement in performance.

For another e-commerce brand, roughly 80% of their Google Ads clicks were on branded terms, and 90% of their attributed revenue was brand-based. We reshaped the account structure, shifting focus toward new customer acquisition, while tightening up brand spend to avoid waste.

Here’s what happened:

•  Estimated brand click share dropped from 80% to 51%
• Organic sessions increased 20%
• Organic revenue jumped 73%
• Sitewide sessions more than doubled
• Total revenue increased by over 53%

Is This Only a Problem for Ecommerce Brands?

Not at all. The same logic applies to lead gen.

We recently took over a lead generation account in an early-stage growth phase. During the audit, we estimated that nearly all of their Google Ads spend was going toward branded search: 93% of clicks were brand-related, yet only 36% of conversions came from those terms. Meanwhile, organic traffic was nearly nonexistent.

Once we restructured their campaigns to focus on broader intent and excluded brand from performance campaigns, we saw meaningful traction: more sessions, stronger conversion signals, and actual pipeline growth.

Best Practices for Brand Keywords

To get real value out of branded search, you need to approach it with as much strategy, creativity, and control as you would any other campaign.

Below are the brand keyword practices we stand by at Bloom.

Use Brand Campaigns to Control the Message and Destination

Search ads let you craft the exact message you want users to see. From sitelinks and callouts to promo extensions and custom landing pages, branded campaigns give you control over the user journey from search to site.

Let Your Brand Voice Shine

Just because it’s a branded keyword doesn’t mean your ad has to be boring. Too many brands treat branded search campaigns as a checkbox instead of a chance to reinforce who they are. Use this space to showcase your tone of voice, highlight what sets you apart, or even have a little fun with it. One of Bloom’s monthly editions of its newsletter “The Shift Factor” speaks to this; read it here.

Use Negative Keywords to Protect Non-Brand Campaigns

In a world of broad match and machine learning, brand keywords often sneak into your prospecting PMax or search campaigns. That skews performance data and makes it harder to measure real acquisition. Setting clear negative keywords keeps your campaigns honest and your budget focused where it should be.

Pair Branded Search with SEO

If you’re spending a fortune to show up for your own name while your site barely ranks on page one organically, something’s off. Paid and organic should work in tandem, paid for defence and flexibility, SEO for sustainability and cost-efficiency. The long-term goal should always be to earn that traffic, not rent it forever.

Use Brand Campaigns Tactically

There are moments when branded search should play a bigger role—new product launches, competitive takeovers, major promos, or when you’re entering a market for the first time. But these should be strategic spikes, not your permanent media strategy.

Monitor Brand Campaigns Like Any Other Investment

Just because branded campaigns are “cheap” doesn’t mean they’re hands-off. Too many marketers set them live and never look back. But performance can shift—competitors start bidding, CPCs creep up, or Google starts blending in non-brand queries under the radar. Review your brand campaigns regularly as you would any other. Check search terms, evaluate impression share, test new ad copy, and trim wasted spend. Even your most loyal traffic deserves a fresh strategy.

Time to Review Your Branded Keyword Strategy

Branded search is valuable, but only when it’s part of a controlled PPC strategy.

Too often, we see accounts overspending on their own name, with no negative keywords, no audience logic, and full trust in Google’s machine learning to “figure it out.”

Here’s the truth: broad targeting needs boundaries. Without smart exclusions and audience segmentation in Search and Performance Max campaigns, you’re throwing money out the window.

At Bloom, we review search terms, trim the fat, set real guardrails, and bring human oversight to automated platforms like Google Ads.If you’re not sure how much of your brand spend is doing real work? We’re happy to take a look, or check out this blog post, How to Audit Your Google Ads like a Pro