While most Shopify store owners pour their Google Ads budget into Shopping and Performance Max campaigns, they completely overlook one of the highest-converting campaign types available: branded search ads. These are the ads that show up when someone searches for your brand name, and if you are not running them, your competitors might be.
What’s in This Article
The immediate reaction most store owners have is: “Why would I pay for clicks on my own brand name? I already rank number one organically.” It is a fair question, but the answer is that branded search ads are not about ranking. They are about controlling the narrative, protecting your brand, and capturing every possible click from people who are already looking for you.
Branded search campaigns typically deliver 20-50x ROAS because the traffic is ultra-high intent. These are people who already know your brand and are looking for your store specifically. The cost per click is usually $0.10-$0.50 AUD for brand terms (compared to $1-$5 for generic keywords), making it one of the most efficient campaigns you can run.
Why Branded Search Ads Matter More Than You Think
There are four compelling reasons to run branded search ads, even if you rank number one organically.
Competitor conquest protection. Your competitors can (and do) bid on your brand name. When someone searches “Your Brand skincare,” a competitor’s ad can appear above your organic listing, stealing clicks from people who were specifically looking for you. Branded search ads push competitor ads down the page and ensure you occupy the top position. Even if only 5-10% of searchers click a competitor ad, that is revenue being siphoned from your brand equity.
Control your messaging. Your organic listing shows whatever Google decides to display, usually your homepage title and meta description. A branded search ad lets you control the exact headline, description, and extensions. You can promote current sales, highlight free shipping, showcase specific products, or direct traffic to a specific landing page. That messaging control is worth the cost.
Dominate the search results page. Running both a paid ad and ranking organically means you take up more real estate on the search results page. This pushes competitors and review sites further down and gives the searcher multiple opportunities to click through to your store. Studies show that running both paid and organic listings increases total clicks by 50% compared to organic alone.
Capture mobile searches efficiently. On mobile, the first search result takes up most of the visible screen. If that result is a competitor’s ad and your organic listing is below the fold, many mobile users will click the competitor without scrolling. A branded ad ensures you are the first thing mobile searchers see.
Setting Up a Branded Search Campaign
Branded search campaigns are simple to set up but need to be structured correctly to avoid wasting budget on irrelevant searches.
Create a dedicated brand campaign. Never mix branded keywords with generic keywords in the same campaign. Branded traffic behaves completely differently (much higher CTR, much higher conversion rate) and needs its own campaign to avoid skewing your data and bidding.
Use exact match and phrase match for brand terms. Add your brand name, common misspellings, and brand + product combinations as keywords. For “Aussie Glow Skincare,” your keyword list might include: [aussie glow], [aussie glow skincare], “aussie glow moisturiser,” “aussie glow reviews,” and common misspellings like [aussi glow] or [aussie gloe]. Start with exact and phrase match to maintain control. Avoid broad match on brand terms as it can trigger irrelevant searches.
Write compelling ad copy. Your branded ad should reinforce trust and direct action. Headline 1: “Aussie Glow Skincare, Official Store.” Headline 2: “Free Shipping Over $80 AUD.” Headline 3: “Shop Our Best Sellers.” Description: “Australian-made natural skincare trusted by 12,000+ customers. Shop our award-winning range with free returns.” Include all relevant ad extensions: sitelinks to key pages (Best Sellers, New Arrivals, About Us, Contact), callout extensions (Free Shipping, Australian Made, 30-Day Returns), and structured snippets.
Set a modest budget. Branded search is cheap, most stores only need $5-$15 per day for branded campaigns. You are not trying to drive massive volume; you are protecting existing demand. Set a manual CPC bid or maximise clicks bidding strategy with a max CPC cap of $0.50-$1.00 AUD.
Non-Branded Search: Capturing New Customers
Beyond brand protection, Google Search ads can also capture new customers searching for your product category. Non-branded search campaigns target generic keywords like “best moisturiser for dry skin” or “organic skincare Australia”, searches where the person has not yet decided which brand to buy from.
Target high-intent commercial keywords. Focus on keywords that signal purchase readiness: “buy [product type] online,” “best [product type] Australia,” “[product type] sale,” and “[product type] free shipping.” These keywords cost more ($1-$5 CPC) but convert at 3-5% because the searcher is actively looking to buy.
Use Single Keyword Ad Groups (SKAGs) or tightly themed ad groups. Group closely related keywords together and write specific ad copy for each group. An ad group for “organic moisturiser” should have ads that mention “organic moisturiser” in the headline, not a generic ad about skincare. Relevance between keyword, ad copy, and landing page is the single biggest factor in Quality Score, which determines your ad rank and cost per click.
Send traffic to the most relevant page. Do not send non-branded search traffic to your homepage. Send “organic moisturiser” searches to your moisturiser collection page. Send “best serum for ageing skin” to the specific product page for your anti-ageing serum. The more relevant the landing page, the higher your Quality Score, the lower your CPC, and the higher your conversion rate.
Search Ads and Shopping Ads: Working Together
- Search + Shopping = maximum coverage. Running both search and shopping ads for the same keywords gives you two opportunities to appear on the results page. Shopping ads show product images and prices in the carousel, while search ads appear in the text results. Together, they capture different types of searchers, visual browsers and text readers.
- Use search ads for category and comparison terms. Shopping ads work best for specific product searches. Search ads work best for broader category terms where the searcher has not chosen a specific product yet. “Best running shoes” is better suited to a search ad leading to a curated collection, while “Nike Air Max 90 size 10” is perfect for Shopping.
- Coordinate messaging. If your Shopping ads show price, use your search ad to highlight benefits beyond price: “Free 30-Day Returns,” “Trusted by 10,000+ Runners,” “Same-Day Dispatch.” This gives the searcher complementary information across both ad formats.
What You Should Actually Pay to Bid on Your Own Brand Name
The number that scares people off branded search is the idea of paying for a click they think they were getting free. So price it properly before you decide. In most Australian Shopify niches, a branded click costs between $0.20 and $0.80. Compare that to $1.80 to $4.50 for competitive non-branded terms in fashion, supplements or homewares, and the maths stops being emotional.
Run the sum on your own numbers. If your branded keywords get 900 searches a month, you capture roughly 60% of them as clicks at $0.45, and your site converts branded traffic at 8% with a $120 average order value, that is 540 clicks costing $243 and returning about $5,184. A 21x return. Branded campaigns routinely land between 15x and 50x ROAS, which is why they are usually the single most profitable line in the account.
- Daily budget: start at $10 to $15 per day. Branded volume is capped by demand, so you physically cannot overspend once impression share hits 95%.
- Bid strategy: Target Impression Share at 95%, top of page. Do not use Maximise Conversions here, it will overbid on traffic you would win anyway.
- Match types: phrase and exact only. Broad match on a brand term will drag in competitor and generic queries fast.
- Success metric: impression share above 90% and search lost IS (budget) at zero. ROAS will look inflated, that is expected.
One caution worth naming. If nobody is bidding on your brand, your impression share is already high organically and the incremental value is smaller. Check that first with the Auction Insights report in Google Ads. If two or more competitors appear on your brand terms, the defensive spend is justified. If the auction is empty, spend that budget on non-branded instead. Our brand search defence playbook walks through exactly how to read that report and decide.
The Search Terms Report: Your 15-Minute Weekly Ritual
Search campaigns decay quietly. You set them up, they perform for a month, and then Google slowly matches you into queries you never intended to buy. The fix is boring and it works: fifteen minutes in the search terms report every week.
Open Google Ads, go to Campaigns, then Insights and reports, then Search terms. Set the date range to the last 7 days and sort by cost, highest first. You are looking for three things.
- Spend with no conversions. Any term that has cost more than 2x your target CPA with zero conversions goes straight to the negative list. Be ruthless in the first 90 days.
- Wrong intent. Queries containing “free”, “cheap”, “DIY”, “how to make”, “review”, “vs”, “job” or “wholesale” are usually research or job seekers, not buyers. Build these into a shared negative keyword list you apply across every campaign.
- Competitor names leaking into branded. If a rival brand shows up inside your branded campaign, negative it there and decide separately whether you want a dedicated competitor campaign.
- Winners hiding in the noise. Any search term converting at or below target CPA that is not already an exact-match keyword should be promoted into its own ad group.
Set up one shared negative keyword list at account level and one per campaign. Most Aussie stores we work with cut 12% to 20% of wasted search spend in the first two months of doing this properly, with no drop in conversions. That is the cheapest performance gain available in the account.
How to Tell If Your Search Ads Are Actually Incremental
Here is the uncomfortable question nobody asks: how much of that branded revenue would have arrived anyway? Google reports the conversion whether or not the ad caused it. If your organic listing sits at position one for your own name, some share of those buyers were coming regardless.
You can test it properly without a data team. Pause branded search for a full 7 days, ideally a quiet trading week with no email campaigns or promotions running. Measure total revenue from branded organic plus direct across that window, then compare it against the 7 days before and the same week in the prior month. If total brand-driven revenue drops by materially more than the ad spend you saved, the campaign is incremental and you turn it back on. If revenue barely moves, you just found budget to redeploy.
The cleaner version is a geo holdout. Split Australia into two groups, run branded search in New South Wales and Victoria but exclude Queensland and Western Australia for a fortnight, then compare revenue per session between the groups. It takes longer but it does not cost you a week of trading in your biggest state.
Whatever the test shows, do not treat search as a standalone channel. Branded search protects the demand your organic SEO work and social spend created, and non-branded search feeds new prospects into the same funnel your Shopping campaigns then close. Judged alone, each one looks either overrated or underrated. Judged as a system, the roles are obvious.
Protect Your Brand, Capture New Customers
Google Search ads for Shopify stores serve two purposes: protecting the brand demand you have already built and capturing new customers who are searching for what you sell. Branded campaigns are cheap insurance with incredible ROAS. Non-branded campaigns are targeted prospecting that reaches people with genuine purchase intent. Together with Shopping and Performance Max, they create a complete Google Ads ecosystem that covers every stage of the search journey.
Inside the eCommerce Circle, Google Search strategy is part of our Promotion pillar. We help members set up branded protection campaigns, identify high-value non-branded keywords, and build the campaign structures that maximise Google Ads ROI for Australian Shopify stores. If you are only running Shopping campaigns and have not explored Search, you are leaving money on the table.
Inside eCommerce Circle, Google Search strategy is one of the core pillars we work on with every member. If you want a second opinion on yours, let’s talk.
