WillPowders Finds Out What Really Happens When You Turn Off Brand Ads with Polar Incrementality Testing
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About WillPowders
WillPowders is a UK-based health and wellness brand offering supplements, superfoods, and powders to support energy, immunity, and overall well-being.
Challenging the Value of Branded Search Campaigns
WillPowders invested heavily in Google Search and Shopping campaigns targeting its own brand name. This kind of brand bidding is a common strategy used to protect traffic from potential competitor bidding and ensure high-intent customers convert.
But WillPowders began to question whether this spend was truly necessary. There was little evidence of competitor bidding on their brand keywords, and the high ROAS from branded campaigns, while impressive, was likely inflated by customers who would have clicked organically anyway.
Running a Controlled Experiment to Test Brand Campaign Value
To answer this, WillPowders ran a three-week Causal Lift incrementality test with Polar Analytics. Half of the UK audience continued receiving branded search ads as usual, while the other half saw no branded ads.
This experiment allowed the team to isolate the true incremental value of their brand search campaigns. Something not possible through platform attribution or UTM-based reporting alone.
Uncovering the Lack of Incremental Value in Paid Search Clicks
The results were clear:
- No Traffic Impact: Total traffic in regions with branded ads was at -1% (within neutral range), indicating no meaningful lift.
- Organic Lift Detected: Organic traffic rose 6.6% in regions where branded ads were paused.
- Zero Incrementality: The brand campaigns added no net new traffic. They simply shifted clicks from organic to paid.
This meant that the campaigns were cannibalizing clicks that WillPowders would have received anyway, effectively paying Google for traffic that was already theirs.
Armed with these insights, WillPowders reduced their brand search budget by 90%, freeing up a significant portion of their monthly budget to invest in higher-impact growth opportunities.
In addition to the Causal Lift test results, Google Search Console data provided supporting evidence of paid search cannibalizing organic traffic. When the test began on March 17, overall organic CTR for brand keywords rose from 20% to 38%. Following the complete cut of branded search spend on April 16, CTR surged to 80%.
This sharp increase strongly suggests that removing paid brand ads allowed organic listings to reclaim clicks. The spike in CTR without any boost in impressions further validates that users were simply clicking organic results in the absence of ads.
What’s Next for WillPowders
WillPowders now plans to keep branded search ads running at the lowest bid and budget levels to monitor competitor activity. Keeping the campaigns live at minimal spend allows the team to track effective CPCs and review auction insights, giving them an early signal if competitors begin bidding on their brand terms. Freed from the high cost of unnecessary brand campaigns, the team plans to reallocate its brand search marketing budget toward more impactful growth strategies.
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