Google AdWords: Guaranteed to Make You 16% Bigger!

OK, we’re PG13 at Marketing Pilgrim, so I’m not going to take the above cheekiness any further. That said, it is accurate. According to new research from Google and Millward Brown, securing the top spot on Google AdWords can increase the unaided awareness of your brand. Take a look at the brand increase achieved by Sprint:

Q: Thinking about companies that offer wireless phone services, which companies come to mind?

As you can see, Sprint achieved a 16% increase in brand awareness by securing the #1 position on Google AdWords.

Other interesting observations?

• Securing the top spot also resulted in an 8% decrease in brand awareness for Sprint’s competitors.
• Even if your AdWords ad only shows-up in the side-bar, you’ll see some brand lift.

Of course, Google’s releasing these numbers to help us all see there are benefits to using Google Adwords, that extend beyond the actual “click.” What I’ve asked to see next is this:

• What’s the brand awareness increase for being #1 in the organic results and how does that compare with AdWords?
• What about other industries (this was just cell phones)?
• How much brand lift would a new brand (start-up perhaps) achieve from using AdWords? Surely these results were influenced by the fact that Sprint has spent hundreds of millions on its brand awareness already.
• How does the increased bid cost of being #1 versus say, #8 correlate to the brand lift? Is it worth spending the extra money?

Anything you’d like to see Google study?