Yesterday I also promised a posting on Search & Branding, as presented at SMX West in Santa Clara. Also one of my favorite presentations of the week, especially since I personally have noticed its importance in some holiday campaigns that I’ve been running for a client. Companies are now focusing more and putting more dollars towards bidding on branded terms, as 13% of branded traffic is stolen by competitors. Check it out, are competitors bidding on your brand name? (and if you’re wondering if it’s allowed, it is as long as your name is not in their ad text.) If you’re not running branded paid search campaigns, you are leaving money on the table. The more your brand dominates the SERPs, the more awareness of your primary competitors decreases. Being #1 Organically & #1 Paid = 2x increase in Brand Awareness = 8% increase in conversion likelihood.

Another thing to mention is that branded search exists solely because of other marketing sources. 67% of visitors were driven to perform a branded search due to the result of an offline channel. Branded paid search can reinforce offline efforts and monetize other advertising spend. Use Google Insights and Google Trends to determine the volume of your branded terms over time. This can be a barometer of marketing efforts across various platforms, Brand Strength, and Market Share.  More branded searches = higher brand awareness.

Here are a couple tips given out this week:

1. When creating your branded ads, use “official site” in the ad copy. Also use the Trademark or R in the headline or copy as well (but put a space before the TM or R or it will look a little funky in the SERPs)

2. Match up offline and online copy – keep the messaging consistent across channels and don’t confuse your visitors!

3. Look at what other words people are typing in to find you. MTV called it “user-generated search terms” and that’s exactly what they are. This includes misspellings and long-tail keywords.

4. Anywhere your consumers are, make sure your brand name is. Don’t force yourself into a community, but engage in the right ones

5. Break down your budgets between Branded and Non-branded terms to obtain a certain level of ROAS

6. Follow your brand name on Yahoo Answers (again, thank you MTV) to determine what your visitors are looking for, and how you can update your site to accommodate them