PPC : Is the Brand Bigger Than The Generic Term

[Qui Gon Jinn]

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Maybe more of a philosophical debate, but ..

Is the Merchant's Brand Name Bigger Than The Generic Term?

The generic term could be a a product or phrase relating to the services offered or goods sold by the advertiser.

Synominous may come into the discussion somehwere, but want to see where this debate leads.

[Supercod]

A lot of Affiliates would say yes, and it is going to lead to trouble, if all any one is going to do is bid on the brand name and do absolutely zero work on the products or services it will only lead to the Merchant being un-happy with them and Affiliates in general.

Good PPC Affiliates will cover all the bases and work hard, poor ones will sit on the brand name only all day long and do no work, resulting in restrictions and possible program closers effecting genuine Affiliates that want to work the program.

Thankfully many bright Affiliates understand that you have to provided a full service, and to the ones that can only manage to bid on the brand name only and no products or service, your time is nearly up, lets just hope you don’t destroy good programs for everyone else on the way out.

[Qui Gon Jinn]

True...

Perhaps another slant is does the merchant think their brand is bigger than the generic / targeted keywords ? And are they incorrect to think so, hence leading to an increase in restricted keyword policies?

[KieronD]

Some brands are very protective of their name and therefore will only offer a lower than standard CPA to brand-name ppc affiliates.

Conversely by generating lots of generic traffic via ppc you can then demand a higher CPA from the same brand.

Swings and roundabouts?

As Clarke says, you really need to do more than just brand name bid in order to really grow the merchants and your business.

[ian]

I've always treated brand ppc as a subsidy for generic terms that are less profitable. An affiliate that can get incremental sales on generic terms is harder to replace than an affiliate that just bids on the brand.

Note to merchants - tiered sales bonuses are a good way to get people going after generic. Just be careful not to start a bidding war to get bigger slice of the brand term volume though!

[Spreader]

Hello folks,

Yep - it is a tricky one to be honest...

As a merchant I'll be completely honest (and I'd say this is probably the same for quite a few merchants) in that we are not experts in the PPC arena.

So, the knee jerk reaction to Affiliates brand name bidding is that this is 'not on' because "if a customer is seaching for our company name then they'll come to the site anyway, so why should we pay X% commission on any potential order".

However, on reflection I think this is a little short sighted for a couple of reasons...

a) because if affiliates are not bidding on our brand name then potentially a competitor will be.

b) if an affiliate is not driving customers to our site using our brand then they may be driving the traffic to one of our competitors, whilst bidding on our brand name.

So, my thoughts are that brand name bidding is acceptable AS LONG AS it is complemented by other PPC activity - i.e. bidding on keywords for some/all of our product range.

Cheers folks,

Zak.

[Nicky]

This is a fairly hot topic at the moment, so glad to see it has come up. I think that Advertiser's are getting wise to the fact that their "big" PPC Publishers are putting too much focus on brand terms. I think there should be a trade off. There are plenty of arguments for having Publishers bid on your brand to increase the exposure and so now that it is becoming more generally accepted by Advertisers we are seeing another little problem. Publishers being allowed to bid, but then putting 100% effort into brand and nothing else! There are several Advertisers where you can see this is clearly happening because their brand is so big. Then if you search around for a more product specific term, they are not represented at all. If Publishers continue to do this, I think it will be very short term. I believe that even as we speak Advertisers are coming up with agreements that if you work with brand then this has to include generic.
I don't think that this is the case with all programs, but where the brand far outweighs the product, then the tides will eventually change.

Zak, I think your spot on, and I see this being the typical reaction moving forward.

Nicky

[Qui Gon Jinn]

I was possibly thinking that the generic term is actually bigger than the brand.

Is it a privilege to bid on the brand plus the hybrids, variations & mispellings which the merchant doesn't always completely cover or consider? Or is it the mindset that has been forcibly induced upon us?

I guess it may depend on your perspective where it could be more of a "trade off" where the merchant benefits from the aggregated pooled knowledge, databank & wealth of experience for generic & product related terms from affiliates. Whereby generic terms are becoming increasingly more expensive or more competitive to get good placement on.

[Qui Gon Jinn]

With the recent Google Adwords changes, it may also suggest that the "generic term" is also more valuable than the "brand" if the cost of advertising on that term is anything to go by.

[Keith]

think its a matter of how much importance google gives to the specific term be it 'brand' or 'generic'

I have one campaign where the brand = $10 and the generic term = $5 and another where those values are reversed

[Qui Gon Jinn]

Obviously it's not going to be sweeping 100% one way. But looking at one account it generally seems generic / product related terms have increased more than merchant name / brand & a difference between direct to merchant and landing page.

However I do feel that generally "generic / product related terms" are more competitive than "merchant name / brand terms"

Granted affiliates are fairly good at finding the cheaper product terms.

[Shane]

"generic / product related terms" are more competitive than "merchant name / brand terms"

YUP for sure in many sectors.. I think we'll find merchants are going to be forced at some stage to offer brand bidding as an enhancer and cost offsetter to affiliates doing volume for them on generic ppc terms

From a merchant point of view someone bidding purely on your brand and doing nothing else for you is doing something that an office junior could do after 15-30 minutes of ppc instruction so it's not adding much value to your marketing apart from keeping competitors out of there.

But allowing some affs that are working hard on generics for you to bid on it means their generic bids are subsidised to a degree and they can afford to hold on or lock out others that may just be bidding on generics

Personally If the generic is very expensive then I'm afraid the generics go to who offers us brand bidding in that sector if the epc is anything near comparable, I'd rather lose a few pence epc and work with a merchant that values me and ensures that I'm making a healthy profit out of the relationship and will continue to work hard for them, than be treated like a unwanted child ready to be cuffed at a moments notice