Marketers shouldn’t overly focus on brand keywords, Travelocity CMO says
Although non-brand keywords may not always appear to be valuable at producing sales in search engine marketing campaigns, they often contribute to the profit margins produced by branded keywords, Travelocity CMO Jeffrey Glueck said at Shop.org this week.
Glueck, speaking at a session entitled, “Why Paid Search May Not Be the Best ROI for Your Incremental Dollar,” noted that Travelocity figured it should attribute 12% of the margin produced by brand keywords to earlier clicks on non-brand keywords.
The rate attributed to non-brand keywords will vary by product category, though it’s usually less than 20%. The lesson, he says, is that marketers who believe they may be overspending on brand keywords should adjust their spending to focus more on less expensive generic terms and test the impact on margins.
While generic keywords may not produce direct sales, many are likely to engage shoppers in early search clickstreams before they settle on a brand keyword to make a purchase, he says.
“We could afford to lose about $5 per generic search term and make up for it with the brand keywords,” he says.
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