Brand Defense vs. Broad Match Expansion at a B2B SaaS Account
Northwind Analytics is a B2B SaaS company spending $9,200 per month on Microsoft Advertising search. The account has three campaigns: Brand ($2,400 spend, $38 CPA, 62% impression share), Non-Brand Exact/Phrase ($3,700, $245 CPA), and Non-Brand Broad ($3,100, $410 CPA). Broad match was added 45 days ago. It loses 48% of impression share to budget and 18% to rank, and its budget is exhausted by 1:10 p.m. daily. The search terms report shows 41% of broad spend going to queries containing 'free', 'jobs', 'tutorial', or 'open source'. CRM data shows 22% of broad-match leads are students. The target CPA is $250 and the sales cycle is 60 to 90 days. The marketing director proposes pausing the brand campaign to fund broad match, arguing brand 'already converts' and broad 'needs room to learn.'
1. Should the team pause the brand campaign to fund broad match? Justify using the numbers and the role of each campaign.
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No. At a $38 CPA the brand campaign buys roughly 63 conversions for $2,400; the same money at broad's $410 CPA buys about 6. Even if some brand conversions would have arrived organically, pausing brand does not free efficient budget-it removes the lowest-CPA volume and can raise blended CPA while competitors bid on the firm's name. The broad campaign is already 64% above the $250 target CPA, so adding budget buys more expensive, lower-quality conversions. Its 48% budget-lost impression share is a pacing symptom, not proof of unmet good demand: the campaign runs out by 1:10 p.m. because it is buying low-intent queries at a high cost per click. The correct move is to fix broad's query mix and measure qualified leads, not to cannibalize brand. If the director wants more volume, first expand exact/phrase keywords that already convert near $245 and protect brand impression share, which is only 62%.
2. Outline a 30-60 day remediation plan for the broad campaign and the monthly budget allocation.
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Days 0-7: add a shared negative keyword list for free, jobs, tutorial, open source, student, course, certification, download, and 'for beginners'; review the search terms report daily and add exact-match negatives for irrelevant queries. Split broad into themed ad groups so budget can be controlled by theme. Days 8-30: reduce broad budget from $3,100 to $1,800 and move $1,300 to exact/phrase, keeping brand at $2,400. Bid broad to a $250 target CPA, but do not use Maximize Conversions without a ceiling; use target CPA or a portfolio strategy with a bid cap. Change the conversion goal from raw lead to marketing-qualified lead by importing CRM stages through offline conversion import, because the 60-90 day cycle means lead CPA hides quality. Days 31-60: audit search terms weekly, promote converting queries to exact, and test LinkedIn profile targeting only if the CRM shows a job-function skew. Reallocate another $500 to exact/phrase only if broad's 30-day CPA is below $275 and student share is under 5%. Success metrics: broad CPA, qualified-lead rate, brand impression share, and total conversions-not click volume.