What the tests found
A holdout test switches the ads off for part of the country and compares its sales with the part that still sees them.
- Jones Road tested Google brand search once before it launched TV, on little spend, found almost no extra sales and kept it on.
- After TV, Jones Road went from about $1,000 a day on brand search to about $4,000. A second test found zero extra sales, and it shut brand search off.
- 66% of that traffic moved to organic search, the free listings, and revenue looked unaffected.
“And I figured it was going to be very incremental then because a lot of people were searching right from TV. And it actually wasn't.”
Limited Supply, August 2026
- Aaron Zagha, CMO of Newton Baby, ran tests with Haus for three years.
“I didn't know that brand search, you know, I should have been spending zero.”
Open Haus Podcast, June 2026
- Sean Frank, Ridge's founder, puts Google search at about 5% of Ridge's mix, says brand search should be under 1% of your marketing spend, and found Shopping ads "not very incremental".
“I think most brands are overspending on branded search.”
Open Residency, December 2025
Source: Marketing Operators, April 2024, and Limited Supply, August 2026, for Jones Road
A starting point before your own test
Common Thread Collective, an ecommerce ad agency, gives starting points for how many of the sales a platform reports are extra.
| Ads | Extra sales for every 100 the platform reports |
|---|---|
| Google brand search | 30 |
| Google non-brand search | 75 |
| Meta ads to past buyers | 60 |
Source: Common Thread Collective, Incrementality 101, March 2025
It says these vary widely brand by brand and need testing for each one.
Where to spend on search, and what to watch
- Searches without your name. Jones Road's non-brand search ads brought above 90% new visitors, and a holdout found them one of its most incremental channels, with its best cost per extra sale.
- A name rivals show up on. Jones Road planned to bring back brand Shopping ads alone, because competitors appeared on its name.
- A name nobody finds. Matt Larsen says his company's name "didn't show up at all without Google search ads", because landing page software companies held that search.
- Your own affiliates. Rewardful, which makes affiliate software, says mercenary affiliates bid on your name, and "PPC is basically cannibalizing your brand search".
What to ask a Google Ads agency
- What share of our spend, and of the sales you report, is brand search?
- When was it last holdout tested, and what did the test find?
- Who shows up when someone searches our name: rivals, resellers or our affiliates?
- Is Shopping in the test too?
Ralph Burns, who runs the ad agency Tier 11, on paying for your own name: "You want to spend as little as possible there."
What we do
We don't run Google search. We run the creator ads on Meta, TikTok and YouTube, and keep whoever runs your search.
See what to check in a PPC agency's search terms report, what to ask a TV advertising agency and break even ROAS for creator ads.
This audit comes from Influencer Advisory, our influencer marketing agency.