People who take excessive credit for branded KW bidding, especially agencies, are unethical. Every agency I've encountered loves to subsidize their mediocre non

People who take excessive credit for branded KW bidding, especially agencies, are unethical. Every agency I've encountered loves to subsidize their mediocre non-branded performance with branded campaigns. Google loves branded KW bidding, because it cannibalizes traffic that 90%+ would go to an organic result. Even with a lower CPC, the high CTR means that on a CPM basis, Google is making more per impression (nevermind the trend of the Chrome omnibox preferring branded queries than direct navigation queries-- Google can't make money if their SERPs aren't shown). Bad marketers will say "it is a low CPC and a high conversion rate", but is that better than no CPC? It is just shifting free traffic to paid. SEM has changed so much over the last 5 years. It is so much more difficult for per unit profitability on search, too many people don't understand their margins and are overpaying. It kind of feels that digital is reaching equilibrium with traditional media, but it is easier to measure that it isn't working.