The Missing Piece in Paid Marketing: How Brand Ads Boost Every PPC Campaign

The Missing Piece in Paid Marketing: How Brand Ads Boost Every PPC Campaign

In the age of rising costs, diminishing visibility, and less reliable attribution, paid media marketers must think differently. The article argues that brand advertising long viewed as a “nice-to-have” or separate from performance marketing is now a critical lever for improving paid media outcomes.

Here’s a breakdown of what’s happening, why it matters, and how you can adapt your paid media strategy accordingly.

The Paid Media Pressure Cooker

Performance-led media buying is under increasing strain:

• PPC costs are climbing, clicks are harder to win, and auctions are more competitive.
• Traditional last-click attribution models are failing to capture the full value of campaigns, especially upstream brand effects. The article references the “Advertising Doom Loop” (a concept from WARC), where lack of measurement leads to under-investment in brand, which leads to weaker performance, creating a vicious cycle.
• In this environment, media buyers can no longer treat paid search/display/social as purely “harvest demand” tactics. Instead, you must ask: Are people searching for my brand? Are they aware of me enough to click?

The Value of Brand Advertising for Paid Media

Why should you care about brand advertising when your KPIs are often clicks, conversions, and ROAS? The article outlines several key reasons:

• Brand search volume as a leading indicator: The article argues that rising branded search users searching by your brand name, as a strong signal that your paid media is working beyond the direct click. Monitoring brand search volume, direct traffic trends, and assisted conversions gives insight into upstream brand lift.
• Awareness supports performance: When people already know your brand, your paid media tends to work more efficiently. The article suggests that upper-funnel brand campaigns (YouTube, connected TV, programmatic display) create the foundation so that lower-funnel paid search or shopping campaigns perform better.
• Cross-channel synergy: Rather than treating brand awareness and paid performance as separate silos, you must align them. For example, paid search should run to uplift brand search volume, and organic/SEO teams should collaborate with paid teams to ensure brand-friendly content and messaging.
• Diversification away from Google search only: The article recommends investing in non-Google surfaces YouTube Shorts, programmatic display, native, paid partnerships to feed brand interest, which then supports your paid media.
• Brand equity helps algorithmic visibility: With more automation in paid media and larger role of platforms’ algorithms (and even LLMs/AI surfaces), being a known brand helps your ad signal, your organic signal, and your remarketing signal all at once.

How to Start Acting Like a Brand Growth Engine (Not Just a Demand-Harvester)

Here are actionable steps based on the article:

1. Shift measurement to include brand indicators.

• Track branded search volume over time.
• Monitor changes in direct traffic and assisted conversions (not just last-click).
• Run uplift studies or view-through conversion metrics for upper-funnel campaigns.
• Don’t dismiss investments simply because they don’t deliver immediate last-click conversion—look for longer-term brand influence.

2.  Expand your media mix upward.

• If your paid media budget is heavily weighted towards search or lower-funnel display, consider allocating part to upper-funnel brand awareness channels: YouTube, connected TV, and programmatic native.
• Use these placements to build familiarity and interest so that when users go to search or remarket, they recognize your brand.
• Use brand-friendly ad creatives, maybe longer or more story-driven formats.

3. Align paid media with SEO/organic efforts.

• Ensure that brand-related paid ad assets (headlines, product descriptions) are reflected in your organic pages.
• Make sure branded landing pages are structured for AI/LLM surfaces (because brand signals increasingly influence discovery via generative search).
• Collaborate between paid search/PPC teams and SEO/content teams so that brand messaging is consistent across paid and organic.
• This alignment helps amplify ROI across both paid and organic channels.

4. Use brand search as both outcome and input.

• Treat increased brand search queries as a performance outcome (which means your brand campaigns are working).
• But also use brand search insights to feed your paid media: what queries are people using? What phrasing? Those can inform keyword and audience targeting.
• Leverage feed-based product campaigns and remarketing to capture those who know your brand.

5. Be patient & strategic about attribution.

• Recognise that brand advertising effects may lag by weeks or months. The article says direct clicks and conversions may not show the full impact.
• So your KPI framework should allow for that lag and not attribute only to last-click.
• Use models like media mix modelling (MMM) or uplift modelling where possible to capture the contribution of brand campaigns.

Why This Is Not Pure SEO—It’s Paid Media + Branding

While the article touches on organic alignment and SEO-friendly content, the primary focus is paid marketing: how brand advertising influences paid media performance. Therefore:

• This is paid media / PPC / paid marketing territory, not just SEO.
• It emphasises auctions, paid search, feed-based product ads, upper-funnel display, and non-search surfaces.
• It also emphasises measurement of paid media effectiveness beyond click-based attribution.

Implications for 2025 and Beyond

As we move into a media landscape where privacy, automation, and machine learning play larger roles:

• Paid media campaigns that ignore brand health and brand search signals risk becoming cost-inefficient. If you only bid on keywords and ignore brand equity, you may pay more for clicks that convert less.
• Brands that can build both awareness and demand will win: when users search your brand name, your paid search campaign is cheaper, your remarketing funnel is warmer, and your ROAS is stronger.
• Media buyers need to be more strategic and less tactical—thinking of brand lift, creative distinctiveness, audience familiarity, not just bid adjustments and keyword tweaks.
• Attribution will continue to blur: you’ll need to combine first-party data, brand‐search trends, assisted conversion metrics, and studies to understand full performance.
• The lines between paid search, display, social, video, and retail media continue to blur. To the extent you manage paid media, you must integrate brand advertising thinking into your strategy.

Final Thoughts

In summary, the article makes a compelling argument that brand advertising matters hugely for paid media performance. When paid search is expensive, crowded, and under pressure, it is not enough to harvest demand; you also need to build it. The paid media function must evolve into a brand growth engine: creating awareness, boosting brand search, and aligning media across channels so that investments in brand translate into more efficient paid campaigns down the line.