Brand names outperform non-branded terms for PPC advertising

Brand names as keywords are more effective in paid search advertising than non-branded terms and phrases, says Travelocity's chief marketing officer.

by Helen Leggatt

travelocity%20logo.gif According to Jeffrey Glueck, CMO of online travel agency Travelocity, brands still matter on the internet. Addressing attendees of the IAB’s Performance Marketing Forum Glueck stated (via Adage.com), "Most of your profits come from buying your own brand name."

A recent study by Travelocity found 96 percent of booked trips resulted from branded keywords, leaving just 4 percent of bookings coming from non-branded terms. To further back up his findings Glueck refers to other recent research findings such as 360i’s study concluding that while brand words account for just 5 percent of paid search spend, they generate 80 percent of profit from search and Nielsen//NetRating’s findings that half of all searches on Google and Yahoo are made up of just 100 terms, and that half of those terms are brand names.

Glueck’s tendency is to be dismissive of the traditional "portfolio" approach of bidding on several generic keywords and to see it as a waste of marketing budget calling it a "profound mistake by all of us to think we've figured out how to measure ROI on search. We're in stage one."

Tags: branding, keywords, Nielsen//NetRatings, paid search, pay-per-click, ROI, Travelocity