BrandVerity Releases Its Report on Branded Keywords Covering Q4 of 2015
Seattle, WA – March 2, 2016
Today, BrandVerity, who provides services that monitor and protect brands online, released its analysis of branded keywords in paid search covering the fourth quarter of 2015.
The report provides brands with a benchmark of what advertisements appear on the search engines when potential customers search for their brand and how much traffic brands may be losing because of trademark bidding.
One key finding from the report concerns Yahoo. After advertising on Yahoo declined sharply in early 2015, BrandVerity analysts noted a reversal in Q4. Yahoo averaged 3.88 Ads per Search Engine Results Page (SERP) across all categories in Q4, up from 3.06 in Q3 and 2.89 in Q2. Unfortunately, in most of the categories monitored this increase was primarily from search arbitrage, which simply directs consumers to other advertising—adding no value and even creating confusion.
While advertising on Yahoo increased, the opposite was found on AOL. The change on AOL was more dramatic, falling from 6.21 total Ads per SERP in Q3 to 4.75 in Q4. BrandVerity analysts have generally found that AOL shows the most advertising of any engine, so it will be interesting to monitor in 2016, especially given AOL’s new partnership with Bing that became effective in January.
To get the full Report on the State of Branded Keywords in Paid Search, along with insight into 10 different industry categories, download the free report here. Or, visit www.brandverity.com for information on paid search and content monitoring solutions.
About the Report
The study evaluates the paid search landscape on the core branded keywords of over 250 popular, consumer-facing brands from 10 different industry categories. BrandVerity monitored these core brand terms during Q4 of 2015 to evaluate trends in how brands are targeted in general and within their specific industry segments.
About BrandVerity
Since 2008, BrandVerity has been providing services that protect brands and ensure that their marketing partners are on-brand and compliant. From our Seattle and London offices, we develop and support services that are simple, straightforward and extremely efficient. For more information, visit www.brandverity.com.
