Branded search (where someone searches your brand name) and non-branded search (where someone searches a category term) have fundamentally different incrementality, cost structures, and strategic roles. Measuring them together produces misleading averages that lead to poor budget decisions in both directions.
Most paid search accounts show strong overall ROAS because branded terms, which convert at very high rates and low cost, pull up the average. When a team then allocates more budget to "paid search" based on this blended figure, the incremental spend often goes to non-branded terms where the return is lower. The average ROAS was never a reliable guide to where the next pound should go.
What branded search tells you
Branded search volume measures demand for your brand specifically. When someone types your brand name into Google, they already know you exist. They are in a later stage of the purchase funnel than someone searching a generic category term. Conversion rates on branded terms are high, costs per click are low (since you typically face less competition for your own name), and reported ROAS looks excellent.
The measurement question for branded search is: how much of this traffic is incremental to paid advertising? If your brand ranks first organically for its own name, a significant portion of branded paid clicks are cannibalising clicks that would have arrived through the organic listing for free.
What non-branded search tells you
Non-branded search targets category and intent terms: "project management software," "running shoes under £100," "accountant London." These searches come from people who may not know your brand yet. They are higher in the purchase funnel, harder to convert, and more expensive to reach. Conversion rates are lower and ROAS is lower than branded terms.
But non-branded search is where genuine new customer acquisition happens. If your organic ranking for non-branded terms is weak, paid non-branded ads add genuine incremental reach. This is where paid search often earns its highest true incrementality, even though the reported ROAS is lower.
- Separate your paid search account structure into distinct branded and non-branded campaigns with separate budgets.
- Report ROAS, CPA, and conversion rates for branded and non-branded independently, never as a blended total.
- Track organic search traffic alongside paid for each category: branded organic plus branded paid tells you total brand demand, not just paid-driven demand.
- Set different ROAS targets for branded and non-branded terms. Holding non-branded to the same ROAS threshold as branded will starve your acquisition activity.
Measuring branded search incrementality
The most direct way to measure branded search incrementality is a pause test. Temporarily suspend your branded paid search campaigns and measure what happens to total branded traffic (organic plus paid combined). If organic clicks rise enough to offset the lost paid clicks, incrementality was low. If total branded traffic drops materially, the paid ads were genuinely additive.
Studies across multiple categories find that branded paid search incrementality varies from near zero for brands with strong organic presence to 50 to 70 percent for brands in highly competitive environments where competitors actively bid on their brand terms. Knowing your specific number changes how you should allocate branded search budget.
Measuring non-branded search incrementality
Geo holdout tests work well for non-branded search because you can pause non-branded campaigns in some regions while running them normally in others. The comparison tells you how much incremental traffic and revenue the non-branded activity generates above what organic search delivers in its absence.
Marketing mix modelling includes non-branded search as a distinct variable (separate from branded search spend) and estimates its contribution to sales using historical variation in spend. This gives you a model-based ROI that you can compare to holdout test results for validation.
The relationship between brand investment and branded search volume
Branded search volume is not just a paid search metric. It is a downstream indicator of how much demand your brand-building activities are generating. TV campaigns, PR coverage, social media activity, and influencer campaigns all tend to drive branded search volume as consumers who encountered your brand seek you out. Tracking branded search volume over time as a brand health metric, separate from paid search performance, gives you a real-world signal of your marketing's cumulative effect.
Should I ever use branded search ROAS as a KPI?
Branded search ROAS is useful as a diagnostic metric (to check whether costs are rising or campaign settings are drifting) but should not be a primary KPI for budget allocation. Because it includes non-incremental conversions by definition, optimising to maximise branded ROAS leads you to spend more on activity that was largely free anyway. Use incremental ROAS, derived from a pause test or geo holdout, as your planning metric instead.
How do I decide whether to keep branded search running at all if incrementality is low?
The decision depends on whether competitors are bidding on your brand terms. If no competitor ads appear when you pause, the case for branded search is weak. If a competitor appears immediately in position one when you pause, the cost of not running branded search includes the traffic and revenue you concede to that competitor. In competitive markets, branded search defence often has a positive expected value even at low incrementality, because the alternative is paying a higher cost in lost sales.
How does smart bidding handle branded versus non-branded terms?
Smart bidding does not inherently distinguish between branded and non-branded terms unless you structure campaigns to separate them. If branded and non-branded keywords sit in the same campaign with a shared Target ROAS bid strategy, the algorithm will favour branded terms (because they have higher historical conversion rates) and under-invest in non-branded acquisition. Separating campaigns and setting term-appropriate ROAS targets is the correct structural response.