Why “your brand + discount code” searches matterWhy “your brand + discount code” searches matter

A shopper has £84 of Yourbrand's things in her basket. At the checkout there's a box marked “Discount code”, and she doesn't have one. She opens a new tab and types “yourbrand discount code”. Whatever she clicks next decides whether she pays full price, whether she comes back to your checkout, and who gets credit for the sale.

That search, and its cousins “yourbrand voucher code” and “yourbrand promo code”, are among the most valuable searches anyone makes for your name, and among the least watched. This guide covers why they're different from a search for your bare name, who tends to advertise on them, how to measure how many there are, and how to see who's there.

A different search, a different auction

Google runs an auction for each search, and each advertiser's keywords decide which searches it enters. “yourbrand” and “yourbrand discount code” are different searches, so they're different auctions with different advertisers in them. An advertiser can stay off your bare name and be on your code searches every day. Round the edges shows how one negative keyword can do exactly that.

Your own campaign follows the same rules. If your brand campaign's keyword is [yourbrand] on exact match, it reaches searches with the same meaning as your name, and close variants such as misspellings, but “yourbrand discount code” carries more meaning than your name alone, so your ad usually isn't in that auction at all. Phrase or broad match keywords reach further. Your search terms report shows which code searches, if any, your own ads appeared on.

Who searches, and who advertises

Someone who types your name and the word “code” has already chosen you, and many will have a basket waiting. That makes the search valuable to anyone who can show them a code, and there are several kinds of advertiser with a reason to be there.

• You, if your campaign enters these searches, with an ad pointing to your own offers page.
• Voucher sites: sites that list codes for many stores, advertising their page for your brand, which your terms may allow, forbid or not mention.
• Affiliates: PPC affiliates, sending the click to their own page or straight to your shop through a tracking link.
• Cashback sites, and the makers of coupon extensions, promoting what they offer on your brand.
• Resellers and competitors, less often, since the search asks for your codes.

How often it happens differs by store and by week. Across the UK brand searches Godotoro watches, the weekly figures count it: the share of searches that showed another advertiser's ad, and the kinds of site those ads came from, in stores and counts.

If a partner's ad takes the click and the shopper buys, the sale can carry commission under last click rules, on a customer who was already at your checkout. Whether that's a fair price depends on your terms and on how many of those orders would have come anyway. The guide to working out the cost puts numbers on it.

How many there are

Two of Google's tools give you a count, each with a catch worth knowing before you quote it.

In Google Ads, Keyword Planner gives Avg. monthly searches for a keyword: Google's average of the searches for it and its close variants over the months and location you choose, twelve months by default. Google says these historical figures are shown for exact matches, whatever match type you enter, and that they're rounded. You need a Google Ads account with billing set up to open it.

Search Console's Performance report counts impressions: the times your own site appeared in Google's results for a query. Filter to queries containing “code” and you see the code searches your site showed for. On your own name your site usually appears, so this comes close to the number of searches, but it's a floor. Google leaves anonymised queries out of the table, and once a query filter is applied they drop out of the totals too.

The numbers are made up, and the share differs a great deal between brands. A brand that runs a sale every month, or whose codes are widely listed, can see far more. Search Console's branded queries filter, where it's available, splits your queries into ones with and without your name, which makes the first count quicker. Google says some queries may be put in the wrong group.

Why your reports miss them

• Auction insights only covers auctions your campaign entered. If your brand campaign doesn't enter the code searches, nobody advertising on them appears.
• Your search terms report only lists searches your own ads appeared on.
• A check of your bare name from the office shows the bare name, from the office. An advertiser on the code searches in the evening is two steps away from that view.
• Your network reports the publisher credited with the sale, not the search the shopper typed or the ad they clicked.

How to watch them, step by step

1. Write the list: your name with “discount code”, “voucher code”, “promo code”, “code” and “offer”, and the same with your usual misspellings.
2. Paste the list into Keyword Planner's Get search volume and forecasts, set the location to the United Kingdom, and note Avg. monthly searches for each.
3. In Search Console, open the Performance report for the last three months, filter to queries containing “code”, and note impressions, clicks and your average position for each query.
4. Open your brand campaign's search terms report for the same months and note which code searches your own ads appeared on. The rest are auctions you aren't in.
5. If you aren't in them, decide whether to be: a phrase match ad group on your name with “code” and “voucher”, with a budget you're comfortable with, puts you in those auctions and lets you read their Auction insights.
6. Look at the code searches yourself in Ad Preview and Diagnosis, on mobile and computer, from two or three cities, and note every advertiser and its display URL. Don't click any ad.
7. Look again in the evening and at the weekend, and for each ad you don't recognise, open About this advertiser and note the name Google gives.
8. Match every name against your partners and what your terms allow each on your name. Take the rest to your network as a question, with the times.

The ordinary explanations

An ad on your code searches usually has a plain reason behind it. Rule these out first.

• A partner your terms allow on code searches, perhaps by an agreement made before your time.
• A voucher site advertising its page of your codes, which your terms may not cover either way.
• A match type reaching further than its owner meant: a broad match keyword on “discount codes” can match a search with your name in it.
• Your own agency, or a second account of your own, with a campaign nobody switched off.
• A sale of yours, or a newsletter, sending more people to search for a code that week, and more advertisers following them.
• A code of yours that reached a listing, so there's now a page worth advertising.

If a partner turns out to be outside your terms, the guide to paid-search rules covers the wording, and the negative keywords guide covers the list to ask for, code searches included.