5 Ways to Use Paid Search to Raise Brand Awareness and Recognition

Building a recognizable brand in the current business climate is not an easy thing to do, especially when you consider the fact that the online world is becoming more competitive by the day. Nowadays, people don’t know anymore whom to trust or which brands to become a part of simply because there are too many players in the online playing field. Needless to say, standing out in a saturated online market requires you to devote time and effort into building a powerful brand and a comprehensive marketing approach.

However, today we are going to single out paid search as one of the most important pillars upon which you can built brand awareness and recognition. While PPC might not be a new concept, it is definitely one of the more powerful trends and drivers for business growth in 2020 and beyond, so it’s important to invest in it to take your business forward. Here’s how you can use paid search to achieve higher brand recognition and awareness.

Set clear goals for your campaign

To start building your brand awareness campaign, you need to ask yourself what you’re looking to achieve, what the timeframe is, and which channels you’re looking to capitalize on. You see, brand awareness is a big concept, one that can encompass many variables and outcomes, meaning that there are different ways to achieve it and different methods you can use to achieve various goals.

To put it simply, your awareness campaign needs a clear set of goals that will ultimately boost brand recognition. Some of the typical goals you could look towards for increased brand awareness include improving your impressions volume, boosting CTR, improving your click volume, elevating engagement and WOM, improving cost-per-click and cost-per-impression, and more. Define the goals that matter to your brand the most in order to give a clear roadmap for your awareness campaign and your paid search strategy.

Align all ads with the user’s search intent

A common mistake that business leaders make nowadays is that they try to push a one-size-fits-all approach in all their marketing strategies. If you want to ensure the success of your paid search campaigns and actually boost brand awareness in the process, you need to optimize your ad copy and gear the messages towards a niche audience. Now, that doesn’t mean optimizing for your target demographic, it means optimizing for the unique search intent of the individual.

You see, different people are at different stages of the buyer’s journey. Some people are searching for credible information, others are comparing products, and some are actually ready to buy. You’ll have no chance elevating your brand awareness if you only cater to one group. Instead, it’s important that you optimize your ads for each of these stages so that you display the right messages and stories to the right people, at the right moment. This will get your brand noticed in the competitive online world.

Optimize your ads to boost your quality score

Paid ads campaigns are typically run through the Google AdWords platform, which can be tricky to get into if you’re a novice in the field. Nevertheless, Google AdWords is the best advertising platform on the web currently, so it’s important to leverage it for your online advertisement strategy. The platform functions as an auction system, where you need to outbid your competitors to rank for relevant keywords, in order to appear in the right search results.

This is a complex process that includes many variables, but it’s not just the bidding that will put you ahead. You also need to improve your AdWords quality score, which any professional team doing AdWords PPC management will tell you is the most important factor that will determine your success rate. It’s important to build up your quality score by making your landing pages and copy as relevant to the user as possible to ultimately build brand presence.

Leverage the Google Display Network

Google’s Display Network, if you’re not familiar with it, is a network of websites and platforms where you can display relevant ads to the right audience as they are browsing their favorited sites. It’s arguably one of the best ways to advertise in the saturated online world and disseminate your ads on as many platforms as possible.

The Google Display Network allows you to customize your audiences and various other parameters to make your ads and your brand as visible as possible. So, make sure to use it to your advantage and in conjunction with other effective methods like influencer marketing and content marketing.

Monitor paid search success and invest in ongoing optimization

Paid search is not a set-it-and-forget-it type of deal. To ensure constant visibility for your brand and its position in the right SERPs, you need to monitor the performance of your ads and invest in ongoing optimization and maintenance. Your Google AdWords platform will provide you with all the information you need to keep optimizing your campaigns, however, keep in mind that this can be a costly and complex process if you don’t have a dedicated AdWords team at your side.

Wrapping up

You can build brand awareness in a great number of ways, and in fact, you should leverage digital marketing as a whole to achieve higher brand awareness and recognition. That said, paid search also plays a pivotal role in this, so use these tips to improve your ad campaigns and build a more recognizable brand in the competitive online world.