Your branded search matters: it keeps competitors out of your most valuable searches. But branded revenue can also make your Google Ads account look better than it really is.
If your reporting blends revenue from branded search (people already searching for your brand name) with everything else, your overall ROAS will flatter your performance, and the real growth can be a lot lower than it looks. It is important to bid on branded search, but you need to report on it separately from non-branded to see how the account is actually performing.
For PPC managers, heads of ecommerce and finance teams, this is essential in reporting when making good marketing decisions. If branded and non-branded performance is blended in your reports, you can't tell whether Google Ads is creating demand or just capturing demand that already exists.
Why branded search always performs well
We want to reiterate: branded search is important to keep your competitors away from stealing loyal customers, but we want to focus on the issues of blending branded and unbranded traffic in reports. Branded search delivers strong results because the user already has the intent to click your link, and someone searching for your brand is further along the buying journey. They may have seen your product elsewhere, visited your site before, received an email, clicked a social ad, or been recommended by a friend. By the time they search for your brand on Google, the hardest part of the journey is already done.
That's why branded campaigns tend to have:
- Higher conversion rates
- Lower CPCs
- Stronger ROAS
- Better engagement and purchase likelihood
All of this is useful for understanding brand awareness. The problem starts when branded revenue is used to judge the performance of the whole account.
The problem with blended reporting
Blend your branded and non-branded ROAS, and the branded numbers hide what's actually happening in the account. Your account might report a 900% ROAS overall, which looks strong. Separate branded activity out, though, and you might find branded search running at 2,000% ROAS while non-branded Shopping sits at 300%. Or worse: most of your budget is going towards people who were already searching for your brand.
Blended, branded performance subsidises weaker non-branded efficiency, and that leads to the wrong budget decisions.
Why non-branded search should be your focus for growth
If you want to grow, non-branded performance is what matters. This is where shoppers discover your products before they know your brand, and where you compete against other retailers for high-intent product searches. Blend the two, and branded revenue can hide weak non-branded performance, masking issues like ad spending on products with little incremental value.
That's why branded and non-branded performance need to be reviewed separately.
