The Brand Search Dilemma: Protection or Waste?

One of the most contentious debates in digital marketing is whether or not to bid on your own brand keywords.

If someone searches for your company name, they are already looking for you. If you pay for an ad at the top of the results, are you capturing a new customer, or are you just cannibalizing the free organic click that was waiting right below it?

This is the classic definition of the incrementality problem.

The Case Against Brand Bidding

The argument against brand bidding is straightforward: Cannibalization.

If you have strong SEO and rank #1 organically for your brand name, paying for a click is often redundant. Studies, like the famous one by eBay, have shown that for some large brands, turning off brand search ads resulted in almost zero loss in total traffic—users simply clicked the organic link instead.

In these cases, brand search has zero incremental value. You are paying Google tax to acquire customers you had already won.

The Case For Brand Bidding

However, it’s rarely that simple. There are valid, incremental reasons to bid on your brand:

1. Competitive Defense

If competitors are bidding on your brand name, they can steal your high-intent traffic. If a user searches for you but sees a compelling offer from a competitor at the very top, you might lose that sale. In this scenario, brand bidding is “incremental” because it prevents a loss.

2. Control the Narrative

Organic sitelinks are automated by Google. You can’t force them to show your “Spring Sale” or “New Product Launch.” Paid ads give you 100% control over the headline, description, and landing page, allowing you to direct high-intent users to your highest-value offers.

3. Mobile Real Estate

On mobile devices, paid ads often take up the entire initial viewport. If you don’t buy that space, a competitor might, or the user might get distracted by other SERP features before scrolling down to your organic listing.

How to Test It

You cannot guess the answer; you must test it.

The “Turn-Off” Experiment:

1. Select a Geography: Pick a specific region (e.g., California) to serve as your test group.
2. Go Dark: Pause all brand bidding in that region for 2-4 weeks.
3. Measure Total Traffic: Monitor the sum of Paid + Organic traffic from that region.
4. Compare: Did total traffic drop, or did organic traffic rise to fill the gap?

If organic traffic rose to match the lost paid traffic, your brand spend was not incremental. If total traffic dropped significantly, your ads were providing value.

Don’t let Google’s default attribution tell you brand search is your best channel. Test it, measure the incrementality, and decide based on profit, not ROAS.