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Why 40% of your ROAS is just brand traffic
A high ROAS is often not proof of good work but of a strong brand. Here is how to separate the two cleanly.
Published on · 6 min read
In almost every account we audit, a significant share of paid revenue comes from searches for the brand name itself. Those people were going to buy anyway. Collecting them through an ad costs money and usually creates no additional revenue.
Why reporting hides it
When brand and generic run in the same campaign, or worse still disappear inside Performance Max, a ROAS of 12 blends with a ROAS of 1.4 into a comfortable average of 4. That average no longer tells you anything you can act on.
What we do instead
- Separate brand, generic and competitor strictly, each with its own target.
- Exclude brand from Performance Max so the algorithm cannot harvest the cheapest conversion.
- Run an incrementality test: pause brand bidding in one geo group for four to six weeks and measure the organic recapture.
- Treat the result as a budget decision, not as a matter of belief.
The question is not whether brand ads convert. The question is how many of those conversions you would have got without them.
In our tests the incremental share of brand clicks typically lands between 15% and 40%, depending on how aggressively competitors bid on your name and how strong your organic position is. There is no universal answer, only one for your account.