Should I be bidding on my own branded keywords in Google Ads?

A brand campaign, or branded search campaign, is a Search campaign that holds only your branded keywords. They get a campaign of their own because the settings that decide how a keyword bids belong to its campaign. A bid strategy is chosen for a campaign, or shared by several as a portfolio, and Google reports the searches lost to budget for campaigns only. Kept apart, brand keywords can bid for a place on the page while the rest of the account bids for conversions, and their weeks can be read without the rest mixed in.

Google offers one more control, brand inclusions: a Search campaign with a brand list applied serves only on searches associated with the brands on the list. Google recommends brand settings only for campaigns that really need them, because they limit what a campaign can reach. If you also run Performance Max, the brand in Performance Max guide covers which campaign a search for your name lands in.

Target impression share is the bid strategy Google’s own help page pairs with a brand campaign. It says the strategy can be useful for campaigns with brand terms, and gives the example: to show your ad every time someone searches for your brand, set the target to 100%, and the system tries to show it on 100% of the auctions in that campaign.

Google calls it an automated bidding strategy, the one it lists for visibility, on the Search Network only. It isn’t Smart Bidding. Google keeps that name for the strategies that optimize for conversions or conversion value, and its Smart Bidding page names Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximize conversions and Maximize conversion value. Target impression share bids for a place on the page, not for what a click brings.

It has three settings:

• Where the ad should show. Anywhere among the search results; Top, among the ads beside the top unpaid results, which are generally above them, though Google says they may show below on some searches; or Absolute top, the first of the top ads.
• The share to reach. A percentage of the times the ad could have shown there. Google’s example is 65% at the absolute top: it sets your bids to help show your ad there on 65% of the total possible times.
• A maximum CPC bid limit. A cap on the bids the strategy sets. Google says it’s important not to set it too low: a low limit can restrict the bids and keep you from reaching your target.

Two more things from the same page. The share counts Google Search only, not search partners. And the strategy doesn’t use the bid adjustments a campaign already has, apart from a device adjustment of -100%, which still keeps the ad off that device.

Because it bids for the place and not the result, the limit is the figure to think about. Set it at what a click on your own name is worth to you, and expect the share to fall short of the target wherever the place costs more than that. The Target CPA and Target ROAS guide covers reading a strategy’s status for a limit that holds it back.

To put a campaign on it:

1. 01Go to Campaigns › Campaigns and select the brand campaign.
2. 02Select Settings in the campaign’s page menu, open Bidding, then select Change bid strategy.
3. 03Select Target impression share from the drop-down, and set where the ad should show, the share and the limit.
4. 04Select Save. Or select Save as experiment, which runs the new strategy against the campaign as it was before you change it.

Google reports where your ads showed in three sets of figures, with names close enough to mix up. All of them count Google Search only, since search partners don’t tell the top of a page from the rest.

• The shares. Search impr. share is the impressions you received divided by the estimated number you were eligible for. Search top IS, Search top impression share, is the impressions you received among the top ads divided by the estimated number you were eligible for among top ads. Search abs. top IS, Search absolute top impression share, is the impressions you received as the very first ad, divided by that same estimate.
• The rates. Impr. (Top) % is the percent of the impressions you did receive that showed among the top ads, and Impr. (Abs. Top) % the percent that showed as the very first ad.
• Auction insights. Top of page rate is how often your ad, or another advertiser’s, depending on the row, was shown at the top of the page above the unpaid results. Absolute top of the page rate is how often it was the very first ad there. Auction insights is the one set of the three that shows other advertisers beside you, and the Auction insights guide reads the whole report.

The difference is what each divides by. A share sets your places against the searches you could have had, so it falls when you miss a search altogether. A rate sets them against the impressions you got, and can’t see the searches you missed.

Google says which to use for what. The rates are for understanding a change in clickthrough rate, and it doesn’t recommend them as a target for bids, because they may decrease as bids increase: a higher bid can enter you in more competitive auctions, in a worse place. The shares are the ones it says you can bid on, and Target impression share bids to them.

Four more columns split what the top shares missed by cause. Google names them Search lost top impression share and Search lost absolute top impression share, each once for budget and once for rank: how often your ad wasn’t among the top ads, or wasn’t the very first, because the budget was low or its Ad Rank was poor. The search impression share guide covers the same split for showing at all.

A brand campaign can lose its place without ever stopping: the ad still shows, a place lower, and its clicks cost a little more. One week’s figure won’t show that, so set the campaign’s weeks side by side.

1. 01Go to Campaigns › Campaigns and set a date range that holds at least ten whole weeks and ends with the last full one.
2. 02Select the columns icon above the table, then Modify columns. Add Search abs. top IS and Search lost IS (budget) beside Search impr. share, which is under Competitive metrics, and Impr., Clicks, Avg. CPC and Cost. Select Apply.
3. 03Select the segment icon, then Time, then Week. Google offers Day only for a date range of 16 days or less, and a day holds too few searches for a share to mean much.
4. 04Read down the brand campaign’s Search abs. top IS. Is the latest week under every one of the eight before it, and under three quarters of what those eight held between them?
5. 05Read Search lost IS (budget) for the same weeks. If it rose as the first place fell, the campaign ran short of budget, and no other advertiser need be involved.
6. 06Read Avg. CPC the same way: above every week before, and a quarter or more over them?

A share is a percentage of something, and Google reports these without the counts under them. To ask whether a fall is chance, rebuild the counts. A week’s impressions divided by its Search impr. share is Google’s estimate of the impressions it was eligible for, and its Search abs. top IS of those is about how many it led. Google sets that share against the impressions eligible among top ads, a count it doesn’t report, so read the sums as close, not exact.

The fifth row is a spreadsheet’s. In Google Sheets, BINOMDIST with its last argument TRUE gives the chance of that many successes or fewer in a number of trials, at a given rate: here, first places, searches, and the share of the weeks before. Add the weeks’ counts before you divide. An average of eight percentages lets a quiet week count as much as a busy one.

A first place lost with the budget steady is lost on Ad Rank: your own bid or quality came down, or someone else’s went up. To see who else, tick the campaign in the Campaigns table and select Auction insights. The report lists the advertisers in the same auctions as you, with six statistics for a Search campaign, and it can be segmented by time. Three of them answer the question: Impression share, each advertiser’s share of the auctions it could have shown in; Absolute top of the page rate, how often each one’s ad was the very first; and Position above rate, how often the other advertiser’s ad showed above yours when both showed. A name that appears, or climbs, in the weeks yours fell is the one that moved in.

Then rule yourself out. Campaigns › Change history lists the changes made to the account over the past two years, and filters to one campaign or one type of change. Look in the week before the fall for a bid, a target, a bid limit or a budget that came down.

• The budget ran short. Raise it. A search for your name that your ad misses for want of budget is one somebody else’s ad can have. The Limited by budget guide covers how to read what a raise would bring.
• Your own change did it. Put the bid, the target or the limit back. Under Target impression share, look at the maximum CPC bid limit first, which Google warns can keep a campaign from its target when it’s set too low.
• Another advertiser moved in. Google names two ways to a better share of the top: improve the quality of your ads and landing page, or increase your bid. On Target impression share the bid is the strategy’s, so check it aims at the absolute top with a limit high enough to get there. On Manual CPC, raise the keywords’ own bids. If the other ad uses your trademark in its text, Google takes a complaint, and the trademarks guide says how.
• You kept the place and pay more for it. The most you pay for a click is what it takes to clear the Ad Rank thresholds and beat the next advertiser’s Ad Rank, so a rival arriving under you raises your price without taking your place. Whether the place is worth the new price is the sum from the top of this guide: what the clicks bring that your unpaid result wouldn’t.

Under Manual CPC you set a maximum CPC, the most you’ll pay for a click, for an ad group or for a keyword. For each keyword Google estimates three bids, each for a search that matches the keyword exactly:

• Est. first page bid: the bid you likely need for your ad to show anywhere on the first page of search results.
• Est. top of page bid: the bid you likely need for it to show among the top ads on the first page.
• Est. first pos. bid: the bid you likely need for it to show in the first position relative to other ads.

To see them, go to Campaigns › Audiences, keywords, and content › Search keywords, select the columns icon, and add the three from Attributes.

A maximum CPC under the first page estimate means the ad is less likely to show on the first page for a search that matches the keyword exactly. Under the top of page estimate, it’s less likely to show among the top ads. Google calls the estimates a guide and no guarantee. They rest on the keyword’s Quality Score and on recent competition from other advertisers, so a very high estimate may mean the ad and its page are rated poorly, and a bid that meets one can still miss the place.

Google gives no top of page or first position estimate to a campaign on automated bidding or ad scheduling. A brand campaign on Target impression share shows neither: there the strategy sets the bid, and the limit is the figure to check.

To raise bids to an estimate, tick the keywords, select Edit, then Change max. CPC bids, and choose to raise them to the first page or top of page CPC. An estimate says what a place costs, not whether it pays, so raise a bid to one only where the keyword’s clicks already earn what they cost.

Every day Goldbeater reads the weeks of each Search campaign whose name says it’s a brand campaign: brand, branded, branding, corporate or trademark, and not non-brand. It looks for the run of weeks, ending with the last whole one, that each fell below every one of the weeks before the run, up to 8 of them and at least 4.

It raises the first place when each week of the run showed first on a smaller share of its searches than any week before, and on under three quarters of the share those weeks held between them. So few first places also have to be under 5% likely at the earlier share, by an exact binomial test, with the 5% divided between the brand campaigns tested. Where losing more of its searches to budget is most of the fall, the finding says the budget and not a rival.

It raises the price when each week’s cost a click was above every week before and a quarter or more over what those weeks paid, on 30 clicks or more. The campaign must have shown among the top ads no more often for it, paid $20 or more in all over the earlier price, and risen further than the weeks’ own spread makes likely, by Student’s t at the same 5%. Where your change history shows the campaign’s budget, bid strategy or target changed from the week before the run, the finding says so.

That is the campaign worked above. The finding’s 53% and 83% are the sums’ third and second rows, and its 717 of 1,350 searches are the counts behind them. Its clicks cost 13% more, under the 25% the price is raised at, so there is one finding and not two. It drafts no change: who else bids on your name isn’t a setting in your account, so the finding says where to look.

Three more checks read the bids behind a place on the page, keyword by keyword:

• A keyword converting well, losing searches to ad rank. An enabled keyword with five or more conversions in 30 days, converting at least as well as its campaign and not under its campaign’s target, in a campaign at least as efficient as the median of your others, that lost 20% or more of its searches to ad rank. Under Manual CPC, Goldbeater drafts its maximum CPC 20% higher, and you can set it anywhere up to double. Otherwise it drafts nothing and names the lever: the part of Quality Score Google rates below average, the campaign’s target, its budget where 20% or more of its searches are lost to budget, or a campaign of its own. In a brand campaign three times as efficient as that median, the raise is offered, not recommended, and the finding says to check the clicks are new business first.
• A keyword bid too low to reach the first page. A Manual CPC keyword whose maximum CPC is under Google’s first page estimate, in a campaign at least as efficient as the median of your others that already pays the estimate or more for a click on average. Goldbeater drafts the bid at the estimate, where that is no more than double today’s bid. A bid of the currency’s smallest amount is left alone, as parked on purpose.
• A keyword bid too low to show among the top ads. A Manual CPC keyword bidding at or over the first page estimate and under the top of page one, in a campaign with five or more conversions in 30 days that passes the same two tests. The keyword itself must not be losing money: it converted at no worse than that median (or than its own campaign, where you have no other), or it hasn’t converted and has spent less than a conversion costs its campaign. Goldbeater drafts the bid at the estimate, recommended where the keyword has converted and offered where it hasn’t. A keyword the first of these checks already drafts a higher bid for is left to it.

Goldbeater also raises an account whose paid and organic report holds no row in 30 days while a brand Search campaign that can serve spent in those days. The report fills only once a Search Console property is linked, and a site shows for its own name, so a linked account would have rows. It is one finding for the account, low, naming the brand campaigns and what they spent, and it is advice: the link is made in Google Ads, and it is what lets you see your ad and your organic result side by side on your own name.

A whole campaign losing searches to rank is the search impression share guide’s, and every line Goldbeater checks is in the audit checklist.

Should I bid on my own brand name in Google Ads?

Google’s keyword tips say to include your brand and product names. Two facts weigh on it. Google doesn’t restrict a trademark used as a keyword, so a competitor can bid on your name whether or not you do. And Google’s own 2012 study found that where an advertiser’s page was the first unpaid result, half the ad’s clicks on average were visits the unpaid result didn’t replace when the ad was paused. The paid and organic report lets you measure your own.

What is brand bidding?

Bidding on a brand’s name as a keyword. Bidding on your own is what a brand campaign does. Bidding on a competitor’s is allowed too, since Google doesn’t restrict a trademark used as a keyword; what it can restrict is the trademark in the ad’s text. The term is also used for an affiliate bidding on the brand it promotes, which this guide doesn’t cover.

What’s the difference between branded and non-branded keywords?

A branded keyword holds your brand’s name, and a non-branded one doesn’t. They’re usually kept in separate campaigns because a bid strategy is chosen for a campaign: brand keywords can then bid for the first place while the rest bid for conversions, and each campaign’s figures stay its own.

Is Target impression share Smart Bidding?

No. Google calls it an automated bidding strategy. Smart Bidding is its name for the strategies that optimize for conversions or conversion value: Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximize conversions and Maximize conversion value.

What target impression share should a brand campaign have?

Google’s help pages give no recommended figure. Their example for a brand is 100%, where the system tries to show your ad on every auction in the campaign. Whatever the target, the maximum CPC bid limit caps the bids, and Google warns that a limit set too low can keep the campaign from reaching it.

What’s the difference between Search abs. top IS and Impr. (Abs. Top) %?

Search abs. top IS divides your impressions as the very first ad by the impressions Google estimates you were eligible for among top ads, so it counts the searches you missed. Impr. (Abs. Top) % divides them by the impressions you received. Google says you can bid on the first, and doesn’t recommend the second as a bid target.

What is top of page rate in Google Ads?

A column of the Auction insights report: how often your ad, or another advertiser’s, was shown at the top of the page, above the unpaid results. Google’s example is 20 of 100 impressions above the organic results, a top of page rate of 20%. Absolute top of the page rate is the same for the very first ad.