The Complete Guide to Branded Campaigns in Google Ads

It might sound a little wild, but in many cases, it actually makes sense to bid on your own brand name in Google Ads. Doing so helps you stay in front of high intent searchers who are already looking for you, and it prevents competitors from stealing those clicks when they appear above your organic result.

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A branded ad is simply a paid search ad that appears when someone types your company or product name into Google. These ads give you full control over the message people see and the landing page they visit, which helps you deliver a stronger and more consistent conversion experience.

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That said, running a branded campaign isn’t always the best idea. If there’s no competition on your branded terms, you could end up paying for clicks that would have converted on their own through organic search. The key is knowing when it adds value and when it doesn’t.

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In this guide, we will walk you through the benefits of a branded campaign, when to target branded keywords, and the step-by-step process we use to build effective branded ads in Google.

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What Are Google Ads Brand Campaigns?

A Google Ads brand campaign is a Google Search campaign where you target keywords that include your own brand name. These keywords are used by people who are already looking specifically for your company or your products.

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Some of the most common branded keywords include:

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• Your brand name by itself, such as “Walmart”
• Your brand name plus a product, such as “Walmart photo center”
• Your brand name plus intent, such as “Walmart pricing” or “Walmart reviews”
• Misspellings and close variations, such as “Walmert” or “Wal mart”

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These are the terms your highest intent users search for, which is why branded campaigns focus on capturing and optimizing this traffic.

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How To Determine If You Should Run A Brand Campaign

Deciding whether a branded campaign is a good idea starts with keyword research. Use tools like Google Ads Keyword Planner, SpyFu, and SEMRush to see whether competitors are bidding on your branded keywords or have done so in the past. 

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If competition on your branded terms is high, then running a branded campaign becomes essential for protecting your visibility and ensuring your high intent leads stay within your sales funnel.

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If competition on your branded keywords is low, then a branded campaign may be unnecessary, since most brand searchers are likely to convert through your organic results anyway.

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Here’s an example of search data from SpyFu for Salesforce branded keywords. You can see there’s a lot of branded keyword search volume and there are 4 ads currently running on the brand name by itself, so there’s a fair amount of competition. In this case you could find value in bidding on a branded campaign. 

However, you want to make sure you avoid spending money on the other searches you see listed above, like “salesforce login”, “salesforce stock”, “salesforce careers”. These are not qualified.

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When To Use Google Ads Brand Campaigns

It is a common belief among advertisers that branded campaigns are just a way to pad conversion metrics, but that is not true. 

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While some branded searches may convert through organic channels, branded campaigns can help optimize for conversions and improve performance across your Google Ads campaigns. 

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Below are a few of the reasons why brand campaigns are so important.

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Protecting Your Brand Against Competitors

Many brands believe that ranking first in the organic results is enough. 

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However, paid ads appear above organic listings, so when a competitor bids on your branded keywords, they’ll show first on the page when people search for the brand instead of your company.

This gives competitors an opportunity to steal clicks from high intent users who were already searching for your company. We’ve gotten many conversions from competitor campaigns, so I can tell you that this can lead to lost business. 

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That’s why it’s important to outrank competition on high-intent branded keywords. You want to be the first thing that a searcher sees when they search for “[brand] reviews” or “[brand] pricing”. If you’re not, they might lose interest and look into the competitors they see instead.

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As your market presence grows, running branded campaigns becomes more important. The higher your branded search volume is the more likely your competitors are going to be to bid on your branded keywords. By running a branded campaign, you ensure your company maintains the top paid position, protecting branded traffic and preventing leads from flowing into competitor funnels.

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Note: If your brand is a trademarked term, be sure to submit it to Google. Competitors can still bid on your brand name, but Google restricts the use of trademarked terms in ad copy.

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Improve Conversion Rates By Sending Branded Traffic to Higher Converting Landing Pages 

If someone is searching for your brand, the chances are that they are already familiar with your offer and are actively considering it as a solution.

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In many cases, these users may convert on their own, which is why many companies assume branded campaigns are unnecessary. 

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The challenge is that organic search does not give you any control over where these users land. Google may send them to a careers page, a blog post, or an outdated resource rather than the page that converts best.

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This was a prominent issue we uncovered during a client audit. A competitor was occupying the top paid ad position, while the top organic results pointed to a help center article and a related resource page. Together, these pages generated more than 250 clicks, yet only seven users reached the primary sales page tied to that search.

With Google Ads, you decide what users see. You control the message, the landing page, and can test both to see what performs best. This allows you to create a far more consistent, conversion-focused experience for your highest-intent traffic.

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We saw the impact of this firsthand when a client asked to pause their branded campaigns for a month. They made it less than two weeks before requesting they be turned back on. During that short period, conversion rates dropped sharply because high-intent users were being routed to less optimized pages through organic search.

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Improve Conversion Optimization by Feeding More Conversion Data Into Google

One of the biggest benefits of a branded campaign is the extra conversion data it feeds into Google Ads. This is especially helpful for brands that struggle to reach the minimum conversion threshold of 15 conversions per month, which Google needs to optimize effectively.

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Since branded keywords attract high intent users, the conversions they produce help Google learn what qualified leads look like. This leads to stronger optimization across all campaigns, not just the branded one.

Google currently offers two attribution models for reviewing this activity: Last Click Attribution and Data Driven Attribution. Because branded terms often assist conversions from other sources, they should be evaluated with that context in mind.

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To keep reporting accurate, we separate branded and non-branded results so we can measure both our ability to convert high intent traffic and our ability to generate demand from cold audiences.

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5-Step Google Ads Brand Campaign Strategy

Running an effective Google Ads brand campaign requires more than just bidding on your branded terms. That’s an easy way to waste ad spend while generating limited results.

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Here are a few best practices we use to maintain a strategic, analytical, and consistent Google Ads brand campaign.

1. Target High-Intent, Exact-Match Keywords

The first step in running a successful Google Ads brand campaign is identifying and targeting high intent exact match keywords. These are keywords that include terms that indicate clear purchase intent.

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The best practice is to group these keywords into segments around related themes. For example, these themes could include:

• [Brand] Pricing
• [Brand] Demo
• [Brand] Trial

Each segment then targets every variation of the primary keyword that users search for with the same intent. This allows you to tailor your messaging to each query and deliver the best possible ad copy and landing page experience based on what the user is looking for.

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For example, the pricing segment will serve ads that lead to your pricing page, while the demo and trial segments will direct users to their respective landing pages.

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Not only does this help drive higher conversion rates, but it also improves your keyword Quality Score, which can lead to lower CPCs. This is one of the key levers for scaling growth through branded campaigns.

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Just be sure to set your keyword targeting to exact match. This ensures your ads reach high intent audiences while avoiding the low quality traffic that often comes from phrase and broad match targeting.

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2. Exclude Low-Intent Searches With Negative Keywords

Not every branded keyword indicates purchase intent. Many searches are simply navigational or career oriented. These users are never going to convert, and serving ads to them will only waste your budget.

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To prevent this, you need to apply a negative keyword list. This list should filter out queries that indicate unqualified users such as job seekers, students, or people searching for free tools.

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Some examples of branded negative keywords we use include:

• [Brand] sign in
• [Brand] login
• [Brand] jobs
• [Brand] careers
• [Brand] customer support

While these examples should be in place from day one, a successful branded campaign requires consistent monitoring. As more data comes in, identify which branded queries do not convert and add those terms to your negative keyword list to keep spend focused on high intent users.

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3. Optimize Ad Copy to Reinforce Brand Trust

With your keywords identified, the next step is crafting ad copy and landing pages that directly respond to a user’s search.

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Here are a few tips we use to create conversion-optimized ad copy:

• Write ad copy that reflects your brand tone and value proposition.
• Pin branded headlines in line one and include the brand name in the description for maximum relevance.
• Highlight new offers, features, or proof points (e.g., testimonials, stats).
• Create a dedicated landing page that matches the intent of the search.
• A/B test different ad copy and landing page combinations to see what performs best.

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For a deeper look at ad copy testing and optimization, check out our Guide on How to Write Conversion-Optimized Google Ads Copy.

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4. Monitor Competitor Activity in Auction Insights

Protecting your brand requires ongoing attention. You might set the highest bid on your branded keywords today, but a competitor can adjust their bid tomorrow.

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That’s why running a brand campaign should be treated as a daily routine.

Check the Auction Insights Report regularly to see who’s bidding on your brand and how often. Use that data to adjust your bids, ad scheduling, and targeting so you maintain the top position.

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5. Optimize Campaigns For High-Intent Audiences

The final step in this Google Ads brand strategy is optimizing your campaigns for your high intent audiences. This requires increasing your bids on your highest intent users and adding exclusion lists for your lowest intent users.

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Your highest intent audiences are those that visit your key conversion pages, like your pricing, demo, or trial page. From there, you can apply custom events for high intent triggers, such as at least 30 seconds on site or at least 50% scroll depth. This helps avoid low intent audiences that reached the page but immediately bounced.

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At the same time, you also want to tell Google which audiences to avoid.

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You do this by adding an exclusion list for low intent audiences. Some of the exclusion audiences we use include:

• Customer lists
• Employee lists
• Competitor employee lists
• Job post page visitors
• Log in page visitors

By increasing bids on high intent audiences and excluding low intent users, you tell Google to optimize your campaigns around qualified leads, allowing you to scale growth through your branded campaigns.

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How Brand Campaigns Have Helped Our Clients

Brand campaigns are a critical component of any Google Ads strategy, yet they’re often overlooked by in-house advertisers. We’ve managed hundreds of campaigns and see it time and time again. Clients focus on targeting their competitors but take no steps to protect their own brand.

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Here are a few examples where brand campaigns played a key role in strengthening overall Google Ads performance:

• TeamSlide: 23x increase in sign-ups
• Coefficient: Back-to-back record quarters
• Celayix: 25% more MQLs and 3x higher conversion rates
• Pimly: 5x ROI in just two months

If you’d like to learn more about running effective Google Ads campaigns from start to finish, check out our Complete B2B Google Ads Guide.

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Need Help Protecting Your Brand?

Are competitors outbidding you for your own brand name?

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It’s time to launch a Google Ads brand campaign, and InterTeam has the experience and results to help you do it.

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Book a free strategy call to learn how to protect your brand, improve ROI, and keep your leads away from the competition.

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