PPC Brand Personality Disorder Part 2: Dealing with Smaller Brands

PPC Brand Personality #2: The Ankle-Biter

Defined (by Deco Dig, of course) as a small company whose brand awareness is relatively low in its respective advertising market/s, The Ankle-Biter may very well compete with PPC Brand Personality 1: The Kleenex, among others, but with a much lower brand awareness and budget. As a result of this, s/he must be more resourceful when it comes to search marketing tactics.

In short, The Ankle-Biter is the Underdog; the Little Company that Could; the "Rudy", if you will.

How do you know if you are the Ankle-Biter? To answer this question, you have a great measurement gauge at your disposal in paid search data. I tend to think that if your branded keywords cannot match 10-20% of your general terms in clicks with unlimited budget, you fall into this category. There are exceptions (e.g. really, really high volume and/or expensive general keyword terms) but for the most part I have seen this to be true. Either way, if searches on your brand name do not constitute a noticeable portion of search traffic, be it paid or organic, you might be the AB.

If you have come to the realization that your brand/client is The AB, then listen up, because there are always methods of taking it to the big guys.

1. The first and most obvious tactic is to actually bid on competitors' brand names. Some of you may say that this technique is "immoral" (morality in advertising? psh!). My argument regarding this is threefold:

• This is a topic that has been argued in a legal setting, most notably by Geico insurance, and the right to bid on brand names was never deemed illegal. This means that the technique remains moral by legal standards, which is good enough for me.
• Google has strict trademark rules and regulations which stop an ad from actually calling out competition in ad copy. Therefore you are simply capitalizing on an opportunity to reach the active searcher, or a user who is clearly interested in what your brand has to offer. If the searcher is looking for something, and you can offer it, it is Google's responsibility to offer that option. If the user clicks on your ad, it is the competitor's fault for not closing the deal with his/her ad when the advantage was clearly there.
• The common argument against buying competitor's names is that by doing so, you are essentially piggy-backing on the popularity of a brand that has spent countless amounts of money/time/effort building said brand. This is true, and there is no way around it. Big whoop. If your offer is better for the consumer, I don't know how this can be immoral, considering the bottom line should be all about the consumer (that's right!). If we are talking about brand recognition of the Kleenex in particular, there really is no way of getting around bidding on his/her name, since the majority of searches will have this name in mind due to the synonymy of the name and the product.

However, before going this route, you should be aware of the potential pitfalls:

• Make sure your boss/legal dept./client is okay with this technique. Despite my points above, some companies just aren't comfortable with the so-called "hyper competitive" method of buying other brand names. If your client or boss is the type that likes to be involved in all aspects of the marketing, run this by him/her first.
• If your industry is somewhat tightly knit, or if you know the other parties, perhaps there is an agreement to not take this route. I have, in fact, had clients who did not want to bid on their peers' names due to this. Fair enough.
• You probably don't want to use keyword insertion ads when bidding on competitor's names. Not only do you want to avoid displaying competitors' brand names in any ad text (including body copy) due to trademark issues, you also want to steer clear of misleading searchers with your ads - for quality score, CTR, bounce rate, and conversion rate purposes.
• If the competition is paying attention, they will always come before you in the results. No worries there, just make sure your message is clear, concise, and enthralling enough to catch the user's attention and wedge that seed of doubt about the big brand.
• Don't be surprised to see the competition send it right back at you, depending on the growth of your product and the scope of the campaigns. If you are truly the Ankle-Biter, this should not matter as your brand terms will not be getting much play. However, you should be sure that you bid on your own brand keywords nonetheless, and in such cases refer to the Kleenex techniques and throw in competitive advantage ad points.
• Remember, this is still all about your goals and those of your client/company. Be careful with bidding on company terms that deal mostly in something that will not convert for you. For example, if the majority of users search for The Kleenex because they are looking for a video that you cannot offer or compete with, make sure to refine your keywords or add negative keywords. Purchasing competitors' keywords should increase the odds of goal conversions; you do not want inadvertent clicks.

With all of the above in mind, here are the best practices for bidding on your competitors brand names:

• Someone once said "If the competition is paying attention, they will always come before you." I'll take it to the next level - if the competition is not paying attention, go for that top spot and make them pay! There is nothing more demoralizing that having some other brand name show up in your search results, and there is no more effective way for the Ankle-Biter to take a chunk out of the competitor's searcher base that to show up ahead of it for searches.

  

  Don't be afraid to take it to the Big Guys

• Your search text ads should clearly state the competitive advantage of your product/brand over the other. Whether it be a defined price point, award, proximity, etc. make it obvious (without belittling the competition) that your ad should be clicked on instead. Again, you should highlight your strengths, not the competitors' weaknesses. This isn't a smear campaign, after all.
• Just like if you were the Kleenex, you should bid on the various misspellings of very prevalent brand names. By doing this, you will also drastically increase the chance that you are bidding on highly searched on terms that your competitors haven't considered. Bonus!
• Local, local, local. As a smaller brand, you most likely have a regional advantage over the competition. If so, let it be heard! I have seen state/city names in headlines work very effectively. Also Google Maps is a useful tool if you have a physical location.
• On the same level as the last bullet, perhaps a competitive advantage is the fact that you are so much smaller than the big guys. Tout you level of customer service due to your size, or the speediness of delivery, or the "family owned and operated" tag if applicable. Anything to make big guys or girls seem large and impersonal.

Clearly, the technique of buying you opponents' brand names in paid search can be a delicate balance of morality and artful marketing. As always, do what you feel is right for your brand. As the Ankle-Biter, you are looking up at The Kleenexes of the world and paid search provides a ladder more readily than any other medium.

2. Spend more time on long-tail keywords.

Long tail keywords aren't extinct from The Anklebiter's list of tactics

The quandaries of long-tail terms, or keyword phrases that are long and detailed, have been well documented. In fact, it seems to be yet another case of a "finger trap" search marketing issue, whereas there needs to be some give and take in order to come up with optimal solutions.

In the case of the Ankle-Biter, long-tail keyword phrases are probably more important than in any other case.

Why is this?

Put bluntly, it is because you simply cannot compete with the big guys on high volume keywords. Or, perhaps more importantly, trying to compete with those dense keywords will ruin your budget and have your Ankle-Biting client gnawing on you because they are not seeing results from their paid search investments.

Furthermore, a recent Hitwise study found that the average number of search keywords is growing as users become more knowledgeable about how to search.

Here is what I suggest:

• Use the tools at your disposal to come up with the most significant long term phrases that searchers use. This would include keyword tools, competitive research (look in competitors' search ads and websites) and most importantly any historical data that you may have, whether it be organic website searches, in-site searches, or search query reports.
• If you consistently run out of daily budget, consider a freeze on the high-volume terms. Just for a couple of days. Do it. You may learn more from pausing keywords than adding them. By freeing up funds that would otherwise go towards dense, expensive, "blob" keywords that arguably are less measurable due to their girth, you can glean magical insights from the more specific keywords that will cost much less. With the right keyword list, you should at least come close to hitting your budget, but with many more clicks (depending on the size of you budget)! This is great because it A) lets you see which specific phrases are more effective when it comes to goal conversion, B) tells you what your ceiling is on the low-cost phrases, and C) you may end up with some helpful insights about how your users are finding you (or trying to find you!) and you can then expand on a particular phrase that works best.
• Depending on your product/offer, you should definitely be bidding on detailed product names and types. These will be extremely likely to convert post-click, they will cost less, and you have a better opportunity of showing up at the top of results pages. Continually look at how users are searching for your products and expand your long-tail keyword lists to include all variations of search.

As the Ankle-biter, you may be better positioned to take advantage of fast changing consumer mindset and search tendencies. Leverage your ability to be nimble and you'll see results that the Big Brands have trouble emulating.

Remember, just because your brand awareness is low, it doesn't mean you can't compete with valuable brand searches in paid search and let searchers know you are there for them!

Feel free to add your thoughts or ideas below on how branded terms can be leveraged in paid search.