Every software company has a search it should almost always win: its own name. Someone typing your product's name has heard of you from a colleague, a review, a podcast or one of the campaigns from earlier chapters, and is now looking for you on purpose. Those searches are among the most valuable in the account.
Many of them aren't from new buyers at all, though. Software is something people log in to every day, and a lot of them get there by typing the product's name and "login" into Google. A brand campaign that doesn't account for that spends money showing ads to customers who already pay you, on their way to work.
This chapter covers how to build a brand campaign for a software company: why it gets a campaign of its own, how to keep login searches out, which brand searches deserve their own pages, how to check who else is bidding on your name and how to read the results honestly.
Keyword Planner's Top Bid Estimate for "Bamboohr" Is $46. For "HR Software," It's $91. Give Your Name Its Own Campaign.
Searches for a software brand's name alone usually cost less than searches for its category. Keyword Planner's US bid estimates show the gap. The top-of-page bid range for "bamboohr" ran from $5.49 to $45.87; for "hr software," $14.49 to $91.47. Less Annoying CRM's own name topped out around $22, while "crm software" topped out around $52.
That price difference is the first reason brand belongs in a campaign of its own. Mixed into a category campaign, brand clicks pull the average cost down and the conversion rate up, and the campaign looks far healthier than its category keywords really are. Separated, each campaign tells the truth about itself.
The second reason is control. A brand campaign runs on exact match with its own budget, so it never runs out of money because a category keyword had an expensive day. Its ads can say things only a brand ad can, like the official site or the current plan names, and its sitelinks can point straight to pricing, the demo page or the free trial.
The third is signal. Someone who searches your name after seeing a Demand Gen ad or reading a review is showing intent early. A brand campaign is often where those people convert, which makes it one of the first places the qualified leads from Chapter 1 show up.
Login Searches Ran at More Than a Quarter of the Brand Name's Volume for 4 of 10 Software Brands. Exclude Them Before Launch.
We pulled each sample company's brand name and its "login" search in Keyword Planner. For the ten brands with a usable brand-name figure, the login search alone came to:
- BambooHR: about 36.6% of the brand name's volume, 33,100 login searches a month against 90,500 for "bamboohr."
- When I Work: about 36.8%, though "when i work" is also an everyday phrase, so its brand figure is an upper bound.
- Nutshell: about 30.0%.
- Patriot Software: about 29.7%.
Seven of the ten came in at 10% or more. These are existing customers looking for the sign-in page, and 11 of the 12 sample sites keep their login on a separate address from the marketing site anyway. An ad for these searches sends a paying customer through a paid click to a page they didn't want.
Excluding them takes more than one word. Google's help page on negative keywords is explicit: "Negative keywords won't match to close variants or other expansions." A negative for "login" doesn't block "log in," "sign in" or a run-together spelling. The site-seeded Keyword Planner files list spellings like "wheniworklogin," "bamboohr log in" and "patriots payroll login." Keyword Planner groups them with the main login search for volume, but as negatives, each spelling has to be listed on its own.
Build a negative keyword list for the brand campaign that covers every way a customer looks for the door:
- Login spellings: login, log in, logon, sign in, signin.
- Account words: account, portal, password, reset.
- Support words: support, help, phone number, contact.
- App words: app download and the name of your app's own subdomain, if customers search it.
Check the search terms report after the first two weeks for spellings the list missed. Customers invent new ones, and each one you find is money back.
One caution: don't add your product's bare name as a negative anywhere in this campaign, and don't block words a buyer might use, like "demo" or "trial." Someone searching "bamboohr demo" is a buyer, not a customer, and belongs in the front door.
Pricing, Review and Alternative Searches for Your Name Come From Buyers Comparing You. Keep Them, Each on Its Own Page.
Not every search with your name and another word is a customer. Some of the most valuable brand searches come from buyers who are close to a decision:
- Pricing searches. BambooHR's pricing search came to about 390 a month, and advertisers bid as high as about $232 for the top of that page, more than any other brand-plus-word search in our pull except two.
- Review searches. "Bamboohr reviews" and "patriot software reviews" each drew about 320.
- Alternative searches. "Bamboohr alternative" drew only about 70 a month, but its high bid reached about $277.
These three come from people comparing you with someone else. They stay in the brand campaign, split three ways, with an ad group and a landing page apiece. Send pricing searches to the pricing page, with the plans and conditions printed clearly (Chapter 8's rule about prices that leave out a condition applies here too). Send review searches to a page that shows your ratings and real customer quotes. Send alternative searches to a page comparing you with the products buyers name most often.
That last one matters because, in our reading, "your brand alternative" can come from your own customers thinking about leaving. A comparison page that's honest about where you're strong may keep a few of them. Chapter 14 covers comparison pages and competitor campaigns in depth.
29 Ads for 11 Software Brands Ran on Accounts Under Other Company Names. Check Who Else Bids on Your Name.
You're probably not the only advertiser on your brand name. When we checked 66 software companies in Google's Ads Transparency Center, 29 ads promoting 11 of their brands were running on advertiser accounts with different company names. One payroll brand had 7 of its 15 recent ads on two other accounts. Our reading is that these are mostly affiliates or agencies bidding on the brand. The Transparency Center doesn't say which, so treat it as a question to check, not a conclusion about any company.
Competitors may be there too. Google's trademark policy says it "will not restrict" using a trademark as a keyword, so a rival can bid on your name. The line Google draws is the ad text. Where you hold the trademark and file a complaint, Google can stop "a direct competitor" from using your name in its ad. So a rival can still show up when someone searches for you, but after a complaint its ad text generally can't borrow your name.
Three checks once a month:
- Search your domain in the Transparency Center and read the advertiser name on every ad. Anything not run by you or your agency needs an explanation.
- Read your affiliate or partner terms. If partners aren't allowed to bid on your name, say so in writing, and enforce it.
- Watch auction insights for the brand campaign (Chapter 7). A competitor showing up often on your name is a reason to keep the brand campaign funded, and a reason to read their ads.
A Brand Campaign Looks Brilliant Because It Wins Searches You'd Mostly Win Anyway. Report It Apart From Everything Else.
Brand campaigns produce the best-looking numbers in any software account: cheap clicks, high conversion rates and a low cost per qualified lead. Some of that is real value. Some of it, in our reading, is credit for people who would have found you through the free listing under the ad.
That's not a reason to turn brand off. It defends your name against the other bidders above, and it lets you control the message and the landing page. But it is a reason to read brand results separately, every time.
- In the monthly sales review (Chapter 7), report brand and non-brand qualified leads in separate columns.
- Never let brand results justify non-brand budgets. Category campaigns have to earn their keep on their own numbers.
- Keep brand out of the automated campaigns. Chapter 10's brand exclusion stops Performance Max from claiming brand wins as its own.
In our experience, when a non-brand campaign is working, brand searches tend to rise behind it, because buyers who first met you through a category search come back later by name. That's the healthy pattern. Brand growing while non-brand shrinks usually means the account is living off reputation, not finding new buyers.
Next: AI Max Builds Ads From Your Whole Domain and Sends Clicks to Pages You Didn't Pick. Turn It On Last, After Exact and Broad Match Prove What Converts.
Brand is the last campaign this guide covers, though it launches in month one. Chapter 13 covers AI Max, the setting that hands Google the most control over searches, ads and pages, and why it comes at the end.
Every chapter, from tracking to brand campaigns, competitor campaigns and the rules for free trials, is on the guide's home page. Chapter 11 covers Demand Gen, which often sends people back to search for you by name.
For software clients in our Google Ads management work, the brand campaign's negative list is built before launch, from the client's own login page addresses and support terms. Search your product's name plus "login" in Keyword Planner today, and you'll see how much of your brand traffic is customers looking for the door.
