The digital customer journey takes many twists and turns on the path to conversion. You offer many resources for each stage, ranging from informative content to targeted ads. When you focus on the steps that a consumer takes before they become a buyer, you have the opportunity to enhance the customer experience and increase revenue. However, many companies miss a critical final link during this journey: branded ads.

Starting With Non-Branded Terms

Buyers at the beginning of their journey don’t have a lot of brand awareness, so their research often begins with non-branded terms. They need to learn more about the potential solutions for their problems, which leads to the first touch point.

The prospects find your organic results or a non-branded ad, which leads to your website. When you have a strong content marketing strategy, you capture their attention through valuable information that educates them about your product category.

They may encounter your website several times during this initial research phase, which begins the brand-awareness and trust-building process that’s critical throughout the digital buyer’s journey. You may put a lot of hard work into building up this goodwill, but one problem could still make it ineffective.

Brand Name Follow-Ups

When potential customers know about your brand, their next research session could involve a search for your name. If you use remarketing campaigns as part of your marketing strategy, they could also remember you from these.

However, the smooth buyer’s journey will fall apart if you don’t run branded ads. For instance, your competitors could purchase listings on your brand name, which would put them front and center for your prospects. If your website happens to be below other sites on organic listings for your brand name, that’s another way you lose these buyers due to a lack of branded ads.

A leaky conversion path hurts your bottom line and the customer experience. When customers click through to another website and don’t see the familiar branding that they expect from your company, their experience suffers. Since customer experience is a major differentiator for brands, you need to perfect the journey so they don’t encounter more friction that keeps them away from making a purchase.

Cover your brand name and product name in your paid digital advertising campaigns, as well as terms that are commonly associated with your company. For example, your slogans and trademarked terms are good additions. You can’t guarantee that a consumer will remember your exact name, so you should include common misspellings.

The ideal customer journey leads the buyer through your touch points at each stage. They should encounter you when they start searching for answers to their problems, when they need help choosing product categories and once they finally begin evaluating different brands. You’ll probably invest a lot of resources into this process, so the last thing you want to do is lose them at the very end.

Make brand awareness work for you every step of the way. When you’re hunting for tactics to improve your revenue or boost your conversion rate, check on your paid digital advertising campaigns near the end of the buyer’s journey. Chances are, you’re losing some of your most valuable prospects when they’re on the way to make their purchases. However, it only takes some minor changes in your campaign to keep them on the right path.