Branded vs Non-Branded Search Volume on Google in the Perfume Industry
Before diving in, let’s define these terms.
Branded search: Any search query that includes the brand name of a product.
Example: “Prada Luna Rossa Carbon perfume”
Non-Branded search: Any search query that uses general search keywords to define a product type or product category.
Example: “Powdery perfumes”
Why Branded Search is So Important
Branded search means your brand has recognition. It signifies that shoppers aren’t just looking for a type of product, they want a differentiated product. Oftentimes, the brand identity is strong enough to warrant consumers looking for your brand. In this case, your brand is the product differentiation. Regardless of why a brand is getting branded search traffic, it is a healthy indication that your marketing efforts are bringing people through the awareness phase of the buyer’s journey and into the consideration stage and decision stage.
Why the Perfume Industry is an Anomaly
Any product category that has a total market cap in the tens of billions will almost always have higher Non-Branded search volume than Branded search volume. It is very rare to find a brand that commands higher branded search volume than the non-branded search volume for that product category. Lets go through some examples using the Google Keyword Planner to illustrate this point.
Herman Miller Chairs
Herman Miller is arguably the most popular office chair brand in the United States. If you talk to 10 office workers, chances are high that at least 6 of them know of this brand and 3 of them have probably used a Herman Miller chair before.
Using the Google Keyword Planner tool we find the branded search volume:
Keyword: Herman Miller Chair Average monthly searches: 10,000 - 1000,000
Now lets look at the Non-Branded search volume for this category.
Keyword: Office Chair Average monthly searches: 100,000 - 1,000,000
Unfortunately, Google doesn’t give exact search volume, however, we can see that the search volume for the entire product category of ‘office chair’ is likely an order of magnitude larger than the search traffic for a branded keyword of a large brand in this category.
Another example:
‘Sperry Loafers’ search volume: 1,000 - 10,000
‘Loafers’ search volume: 100, 000 - 1,000,000
These examples are representative of most products and branded keywords. There are also many counter-examples of branded traffic being higher than non-branded. These examples are not as common and are normally relegated to product categories that have a limited amount of brands operating within the category, and these brands have very high brand recognition.
A very clear example of this:
Keyword: Video Game Console Average monthly searches: 10,000 - 100,000
Keyword: Playstation 5 Average monthly searches: 1,000,000 - 10,000,000
Branded vs Non-branded Search Volume in the Perfume Industry
What is obvious to anyone who has done this research is that branded search volume is higher than non-branded volume for many perfume scent families or perfume categories. Often the discrepancy between branded vs non-branded search is massive. This indicates that the perfume consumer is very reliant on the brand when making purchasing decisions. This highlights the importance of brand identity and the need to ensure all marketing follows brand safety guidelines.
Lets look at some examples
Gourmand Perfumes
Here is a comparison of the scent family ‘gourmand’ against some of the popular gourmand perfumes.
Branded keywords
Vanilla Perfumes
Here is a counter-example where we see multiple brands’ search volume far exceeded by the product category search term ‘Vanilla Perfume’.
How This Should Guide Perfume Advertising Strategy
I have provided some examples to give a generalized overview of consumer search behavior. Branded search query volume will generally be equal to or higher than non-branded search queries within the perfume industry. This translates to, consumers being much more likely to search for a specific perfume that has notes that they are looking for rather than searching for “(perfume note) - perfume”.
If you are leading the marketing and branding efforts of a perfume brand, you need dedicate your resources to building your brand and focusing on brand marketing. This statement sounds vague so let’s narrow down what this looks like on a tactical level.
Advertising that is focused on directing people to your owned-media channels. Best accomplished through short form video on social media platforms
A comprehensive SEO strategy that focuses on profitable keywords
Dedicating money to influencer marketing