Hi Roy,

I agree that you need to separate branded keyword results versus non-branded.

A seasoned digital marketer should not expect non-branded keywords to outperform branded ones.

When people are looking for a solution to a problem, they may search for a brand name, the problem, or the product/service.

If they search for your company’s brand, “you have done well,” but if they search for your competitors’ brand, then you may not be doing so well.

1. You need to make sure that you know the ratio between the number of monthly searches for your brand versus your competitors’ brand. Which brand is winning the search competition? It would help if you found out who else is using your brand name as a keyword.
2. Make sure you know the ratio between the number of monthly searches for your brand (branded keywords,) versus the problem/product (unbranded keywords.)

3. Determine who is advertising using the problem/product as unbranded keywords.

4. Check that your website appears on the first page of organic Google results when searching for your brand and the problem/product. It is important to determine how many sales these organic results are generating (branded versus non-branded).

The million-dollar question is, “How much is your company willing to pay for an online sale or lead?” Knowing this number will allow us to experiment intelligently with online advertising.

The low-hanging fruit is the branded searches. If the branded keywords are bringing incremental sales at the expected cost per sale, then keep advertising.

The challenge is the non-branded keywords, but with a clear cost per sale or lead target, it is never hard to determine if the expense is worth it.

It should not take more than 3 months to determine if Google ads are a good investment, or to find pockets of keywords (or products) that deliver good value.

I am sure that a pro managed your client’s campaign.

From what I see, the campaign from City 1 was delivering a similar revenue per click between branded and non-branded; the obvious difference is the CPC. One area of interest is that the non-branded phone revenue is much better than branded phone revenue.

The City 2 brand campaign is performing close to the City 1 results.

City 3 is underperforming on both fronts, branded and non-branded.

From this cursory review, I think:

1. Your client should continue advertising with Google Ads in City 1 & 2 using branded keywords.

2. City 3 branded campaign needs some work on the revenue side.

3. City 1 non-branded campaign can be profitable and should be given a chance to be optimized.

Let me know if I can help.