The Google System.
The architecture that treats Google as the demand-capture engine.
Google captures demand. It doesn’t need to create it.
Some of that demand comes from work the brand has already done. Some of it already exists in the market. Someone searching for a product or solution is already telling us what they want.
Google’s job is to catch that intent and make sure it lands somewhere useful.
Because Google sits close to the decision, it can look like the source of demand rather than the place it surfaced.
That matters when the business decides where the next dollar belongs. A channel that captures demand efficiently can be extremely valuable without being the reason that demand existed.
Capture is valuable. It just needs to be understood for the job it is doing.
Capture, do not create.
Google’s job is to be ready when someone starts looking. That intent may have been created by the brand or may already exist in the market. The account has to understand what the search is telling us and meet the customer there.
Five campaigns. Each for a different kind of intent.
The search tells us how ready the customer is. The Spine helps us decide what they need to hear when we meet them there.
Financial Architecture tells us what that demand is worth, so the account can capture it without paying more than the economics support.
The search tells us
what the customer is ready for.
Someone searching the brand by name is in a different place from someone searching the category for the first time. Google gives us that signal before they ever reach the site.
A broad search may need more context. A specific product search can move much closer to the decision.
The experience starts from what the customer already knows.
Search also shows demand moving through the market. Branded search can tell us whether interest created elsewhere is turning into people actively looking for the brand.
Google captures intent and shows us how that intent is changing.
Three questions.
Start with how the account handles intent.
If those answers aren’t clear, different kinds of intent are probably being treated the same way.
Brand Search protects demand already attached to the brand. Non-Brand meets people who are already in the market and gives them a reason to choose it.
The better the account understands the search, the better it can meet the customer at their readiness.
The brands that compound meet people at the level of intent they arrive with.