WhyWeWon'tTouchYourBrandCampaigns(Yet)

Brand campaigns are the darlings of every agency report.

12x ROAS. Low CPCs. High conversion rates. Beautiful numbers that make everyone feel good.

They're also largely fiction.

The problem with brand campaigns:

Someone types your brand name into Google. They were going to find you anyway. Your organic listing is right there. Your direct traffic is possible.

But you paid for the click. And Google gave you credit for the sale.

This isn't acquisition. It's a toll booth on the road to your own store.

When brand campaigns matter:

• Competitors bidding on your name (defensive necessity)
• Complex navigation to specific products (convenience)
• New product launches needing visibility (temporary support)

When they don't:

• General brand queries you'd capture organically
• Repeat customers who know your URL
• Traffic from other paid campaigns (double counting)

Why we start elsewhere:

Brand campaigns are easy. They look good. They pad the numbers.

Non-brand campaigns are hard. They reveal whether your products actually sell to cold audiences. They show whether Google Ads creates demand or just harvests it.

If an agency leads with brand campaign performance, they're hiding something. The non-brand numbers tell the real story.

What we do:

We audit brand campaign incrementality first. Are you paying for traffic you'd get anyway? Usually yes.

Then we focus on non-brand. The campaigns that actually grow the business.

Brand campaigns come later, with proper scrutiny, for proper reasons.