A number of large brands have completely stepped back from defending their own top branded search terms on Amazon. More than 250 branded search terms each generating more than 100K searches in July 2024 had 100% of any top-10 sponsored placements secured by competing brands the first week of August 2024. The ten most-searched terms exhibiting this trend include those associated both with large, multinationals, and fast-growing independent brands.

These brands may be fully intentional stepping back defensively. Especially as a brand grows more popular, the cost of defending branded terms on Amazon naturally rises as competitors try to poach in-market customers. It’s possible that increased competition on these terms has made CPCs prohibitively high, causing the brands themselves to not increase bids in order to preserve margins.

Additionally, consumers who search using a brand name are highly likely to buy from that brand regardless. This makes branded terms naturally a less incremental advertising opportunity, changing the calculus on the value of top-of-search defense. 

Biggest Takeaways for Brands

• If you’re a brand that wants to do more competitor conquesting, understand the likely value of each competitor term and act accordingly
  • The best opportunities to conquest competitor terms are opportunities where your product presents a significantly better value proposition on a clearly defined metric (e.g. price, range of functionality, review count, existing brand equity)
  • If your product is, for example, priced significantly higher than the competitor you’re bidding against, the conversion rate is likely to be low
• Consider experiments to nail down the value of defending top-of-search across each of your most popular branded terms
  • Particularly for market-leading brands, turning off branded search spend for a defined period of time can help clearly define the sales impact, what brands are most aggressively going after your customers, and what terms or product lines are most sensitive to changes in paid presence
  • Defending 100% of your branded terms is going to be more important for up-and-coming brands than established brands

Methodology

To determine the most conquested branded terms on Amazon US, Momentum Commerce analyzed the brand associated with paid placements (i.e. Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Brands Video) appearing across the top 10 overall results on a given search results page. Branded terms were identified based on a given brand either being included in the search query itself, and/or the vast majority of top organic results on a term all being products from a single brand. The study period was defined as August 1 through 7, 2024. Due to the dynamic nature of Amazon search, it is possible that while a given brand may not have secured a top paid placement over the study period, that can change in the intervening days and weeks.