Google Ads
Is your Google Ads brand campaign taking credit for organic sales?
A branded search campaign can report enormous ROAS and still create relatively little incremental revenue. That is because people searching your brand often intended to visit you already.
What the ad platform sees
A shopper searches your brand, clicks the ad and buys. Google Ads can reasonably attribute the conversion to that click.
What the business needs to know
Would the shopper have clicked the organic listing directly underneath and purchased anyway? That is the incrementality question.
Look at total search behaviour
Compare paid brand clicks with organic branded traffic, total branded sessions and Shopify sales. If paid clicks rise while organic branded clicks fall by a similar amount, some cannibalization may be happening. Competitor ads, shopping modules and mobile SERP layouts can complicate the picture, which is why simple assumptions are risky.
Keep brand separate in reporting
A Google account where brand delivers 1,500% ROAS and non-brand delivers 250% can look excellent when blended. If your goal is new-customer growth, those categories should not be interpreted as the same thing. Brand advertising may still be worthwhile — just do not confuse capturing existing demand with creating all of it.
Suspect branded search is doing most of the work?
Send us an inquiry. We can separate brand capture from non-brand acquisition and measure the account more honestly.