Brand campaigns look brilliant and non-brand campaigns look expensive, and neither number tells you what your ads add. Here's why to keep them apart, and how to judge each one.
In most Google Ads accounts, the brand campaign is the star. It has the lowest cost per sale, the highest ROAS and the best click rate. Non-brand looks expensive next to it.
That comparison is misleading. The two campaigns do different jobs, and judging them by the same number leads to the wrong decisions: too much money for brand, too little patience for non-brand.
The short version
- Brand searches come from people who already know you. Many of them would have found you without an ad.
- Non-brand searches come from people looking for what you sell. That's where new customers are found, and they cost more.
- Mixed together, brand's cheap sales hide non-brand's real cost, and Smart Bidding moves money to brand.
- Keep them in separate campaigns, judge brand on whether it protects your name and non-brand on whether it pays off.
Why brand looks so good
Someone who searches for your shop's name has already decided to visit you. The ad gets the click and the sale, and the report gives it the credit.
But how many of those buyers would have clicked your organic result right below? Often most of them. The brand campaign's ROAS shows what the ad was present for, not what it added.
Brand ads still have a job. Competitors can bid on your name, and Google's results put ads above your own link. A brand campaign makes sure the first thing people see is you. It's insurance, and insurance should be cheap.
Why non-brand looks expensive
Someone searching for "waterproof hiking boots" hasn't chosen a shop yet. You compete for them with every other shop, and many of them won't buy at all. So the clicks cost more and convert less.
But these are customers you wouldn't have reached otherwise. A non-brand sale at your break-even is worth more to your business than a brand sale at three times the ROAS, because it's new.
What goes wrong when they're mixed
- The averages hide the truth. A campaign that's half brand can show a good ROAS while its non-brand half loses money.
- Smart Bidding chases the easy sales. It moves spend towards brand searches, because they convert best, and away from the searches that would bring new customers.
- Performance Max takes brand traffic too. Without brand exclusions, a Performance Max campaign can serve on your brand searches and take credit for sales your brand campaign would have had.
How to keep them apart
- Run brand searches in their own Search campaign.
- Exclude your brand from non-brand Search and Performance Max campaigns with Google's brand exclusions (in Search campaigns, only with AI Max on), or with negative keywords for your name. Google notes that brand exclusions also block brand misspellings.
- Keep the brand campaign's budget modest. It only needs enough to show up for your own name.
How to judge each one
Brand: Does it show up when people search for you? Is the cost per click low? Are competitors appearing on your name? Its ROAS is a poor guide.
Non-brand: Does it bring sales at or below your break-even? Measure it over weeks, not days, and compare it with what a new customer is worth, not with brand. See What is a good Google Ads ROAS for my business?
How Bavian handles it
Bavian moves brand searches into a campaign of their own once there are enough of them, and its Campaigns page shows each campaign's results separately, so brand and non-brand show up side by side rather than as one average.
