What Is Brand Bidding? A Rite of Passage on Google Ads

Last month I wrote about eCom Listicles. Today let’s talk about the other path most affiliates on Google Ads have tried: Brand Bidding.

Anyone running offers who has touched Google Ads has almost certainly heard of it or tried it. But most didn’t start with listicles; they started with BB.

The reason is simple: BB has a slightly lower barrier to entry and it’s easy to get data flowing. The playbook is very direct too. It’s basically the standard starter kit for Google Ads.

What is Brand Bidding

Explained in one sentence: you bid on other people’s brand keywords in Google Ads, send the users searching for that brand into your affiliate funnel, and earn CPS commissions.

For example: a user searches “Bathroom mat”, sees your ad, clicks through, buys via your affiliate link, and you get the commission.

The biggest difference from other kinds of media buying: you don’t have to create demand. You only have to intercept demand that already exists.

The user already knows the product and is already searching for it. You’re just one more touchpoint on their way to checkout.

Search intent is extremely strong, so conversion rates are naturally much higher than with display ads.

Why it’s a rite of passage

It’s clear once you compare it with listicles.

Listicles run on generic keyword traffic: a user searches “best bathroom mat”, lands on your page, compares several products, and then decides which one to buy. That’s aimed at users who are still comparing.

Brand Bidding runs on brand keyword traffic: the user searches a specific product name. They’ve already decided to buy; you’re just giving them a place to do it. That’s aimed at users who already know what they want.

The two are very different:

Listicles have a higher barrier to entry, a slower pace, and need constant optimization of the LP and creatives, but the ceiling is high and they’re evergreen.

Brand Bidding has a low barrier, fast feedback and early sales. Once it’s running it’s stable, but the ceiling is limited.

If you’re just getting into Google Ads, starting with BB makes it easier to land your first sale. If you’re already running stably, add listicles to scale.

The affiliates who are actually making money mostly run both: BB as the base early on, then a switch to listicles for scale.

Is this path white hat or black hat

This is where a lot of people get it wrong.

BB isn’t black or white. The way I see it, it sits somewhere in between.

There’s only one test: does the network explicitly allow Brand Bidding on the offer you’re running?

If it’s allowed, it’s white hat. You’re just running traffic the way the network approved.

If it’s not allowed and you run it anyway, it’s black hat. You’re violating the offer terms, the network can refuse to pay your commissions or even ban your account, and on Google’s side accounts get suspended easily for “unclear brand relationships”.

So the first step in picking an offer isn’t checking how high the payout is. It’s asking your AM: is Brand Bidding allowed on this offer?

Policies vary a lot between networks. On some networks most offers allow BB; on others, none do.

That’s why, when you’re starting out with BB, choosing the network matters more than choosing keywords.

The core logic of running BB

The most important rule: don’t chase huge volume on a single campaign. Run many campaigns at the same time and stack small, steady profits.

People who do this well average around 30-40% ROI. Daily profit per campaign isn’t high, but with 10+ running at once, it adds up to a stable monthly income.

That’s different from the Facebook logic of finding one winning campaign and scaling it hard.

BB is slow, careful work: pick the right offer, get it to a small profit, copy it to the next one, cap the cost of every single campaign, and leave the winning parts alone.

One last thing

With listicles and Brand Bidding covered, the two main routes for affiliates on Google Ads are basically complete.

If you’ve only ever run Facebook, Google Ads is a second leg worth taking the time to build.

Whichever direction you choose, respecting the platform’s rules and the way the game is played is what lets you go further down this road.