Quick answer: Should you bid on your own brand name? Usually yes if competitors bid on it, and the clicks are cheap. Test turning it off if they don’t.
If people already search for your business by name, why pay for those clicks? It’s a fair question. Sometimes it’s worth it, sometimes it isn’t.
Why brand campaigns can be worth it
- Competitors may bid on your name. If they do, their ad can appear above your organic listing when someone searches for you specifically.
- Brand clicks are usually cheap. Your ad is highly relevant to searches for your own name, so Quality Score is typically high and costs low.
- You control the message. You can highlight an offer, send people to the best page and add sitelinks and call assets.
- More space on the page. An ad plus your organic listing and Business Profile pushes others further down.
When you might skip it
- No competitors or directories are advertising on your name.
- Your business name is a common phrase, so you’d pay for unrelated searches.
- Budget is very tight and you’d rather spend every dollar on new customers.
How to test it
Search your business name on a few devices over several days (or use the Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool in Google Ads, which doesn’t affect your stats). If competitors appear, run a brand campaign. If not, try a small brand campaign for a month and compare total enquiries with and without it.
Set it up properly
- Keep brand keywords in their own campaign with a separate budget, so cheap brand clicks don’t make your other campaigns look better than they are.
- Add your brand name as a negative keyword in your other Search campaigns.
- In Performance Max, use brand exclusions so it doesn’t take credit for people already searching for you. Read Search vs Performance Max.
What about bidding on competitors’ names?
You can bid on competitor names as keywords, but you generally can’t use their trademark in your ad text. Australian law also prohibits misleading conduct, so never imply you are them. Competitor clicks are often expensive and convert poorly.
Sources and further reading
Written by Gregory
20 years building websites and running lead generation, mostly with my own money on the line. Based in Sydney, working with clients worldwide. How I work →