Do Online Search Ads Help Brand Awareness?

When a business decides to use search ads it’s almost always with a direct response goal in mind. That goal may be driving new leads at a cost of $30/lead or having an 80% ROI with sales in their online store, but is that missing some of the value?

Ad Nerd Jargon Dictionary

Search ads – Paid results showing in Google/Yahoo/Bing ads, typically the top 3 listings and listings on the right hand side. Also called PPC.
Direct response – Advertising with the primary goal of driving an immediate acquisition either of a potential client or sale.
Brand awareness – The degree to which your ‘brand’, be it a company name, product line, etc. is recognized by a target audience.

Since everything is trackable with search ads we normally judge the value of these campaigns based on quantitative values, but a recent study will have you re-thinking your valuation.

The study by Ipsos MediaCT and Google was a combination of 61 studies run across 12 verticals, everything from auto sales to consumer retail.

The study found that search ads lifted brand awareness by and average of 6.6%!

While that may not seem like a huge amount, remember that this is a secondary benefit to the direct response which has huge returns on it’s own. The percentage amount also varies by industry so if you’re an online hat retailer you may not see as much lift, but if you’re a local cosmetic surgery provider the lift would far exceed the average.

Here’s a look at the study highlights

You can read more about this study here.

If you’d like to get started with online search ads to help grow your sales and your brand contact us or request a free consultation!