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Key Takeaways
Run branded PPC because the OTAs already are: Airbnb, Vrbo, and listing sites bid on vacation rental brand names and quite literally steal the traffic out from underneath you — even against registered trademarks, since competitors simply keep your name out of their headlines. Paul ran these at TravelNet as brand protection campaigns, and that’s the right frame: defense for demand you already earned.
The economics are absurd — pennies in, bookings out: Branded clicks typically run 10 to 20 cents, budgets of $100 to $250 a month cover most companies, and returns land around 20-to-1 to 40-to-1 because someone searching your name is at dates-and-rates intent. When someone sneers that of course branded shows ROI — fine, which metric would you rather run the business on?
A branded campaign lifts the whole account: Google needs proof your account belongs: a campaign with a very high click-through rate, very low cost per click, and steady conversions tells the algorithm you’re a relevant operator. Especially in new accounts, that quality signal helps every other campaign you run perform better.
Stack the SERP — ad, organic, and business profile together: Between your paid ad, the number-one organic listing, and your Google Business Profile, nobody else should get a click on your name. And with search layouts constantly shifting — ads now mixing into mid-page organic positions — owning multiple slots above the fold is cheap insurance on the highest-intent search your business will ever see.
Don’t drop the ball at the one-yard line: The brand search is the last touch: someone saw the ads, read the emails, got retargeted, and now they’re typing your name to book dates and rates. Check multi-touch attribution and the final paid click is almost always branded. Doing all that nurture work and then losing the handoff to a Vrbo ad is self-sabotage.
A generic name makes brand defense triple the work: Name yourself Area Vacation Rentals dot com and Google often doesn’t believe you’re a brand at all — no map pack for your name, a lodging block instead, and your branded campaign quietly becomes a long-tail campaign full of people who never meant you. Conrad’s standing book recommendation applies: Hello, My Name Is Awesome. Pick a name people can actually find.
Be honest about cannibalization — then run it anyway: Yes, some searchers skip your ad and click the organic listing; when one client’s card lapsed, branded organic clicks ticked up 5 to 10 percent in Search Console. That’s the whole steel-man, and at 15 cents a click it doesn’t change the math. Nobody in this game makes the rules except Google — you just decide how to play.
Let auction insights tell you when to ease off: If impression share sits north of 90 percent and nobody shows up bidding against you, it’s fair to evaluate trimming — some clients are playing defense with no one trying to score. But mind the threshold: Paul has watched cost per click jump roughly 30 percent once share slips below 80. If budget has to come from somewhere, branded is the last cut, not the first.
Ignore salespeople who call branded PPC wasteful: The pitch says branded ads just steal from your organic clicks and inflate your numbers — delivered with zero context, often by companies quietly running branded campaigns on their own name. Before you buy it, ask to talk to the person who’s inside accounts every day, not the sales team with a contract to win.
What We Cover In This Episode
Conrad and Paul make the case for running branded Google Ads on your own company name 99.9 percent of the time: brand protection from OTA bidders, the lopsided economics, what auction insights tell you about easing off, and the sales pitches to ignore.
