Nerd Alert: Do Brands Need Search Advertising?
Nerd Alert: Do Brands Need Search Advertising?  
Podcast: The Marketing Architects
Published On: Thu Oct 15 2026
Description: Welcome to Nerd Alert, a series of special episodes bridging the gap between marketing academia and practitioners. We’re breaking down highly involved, complex research into plain language and takeaways any marketer can use.In this episode, Elena and Rob question whether paying Google to show up for your own brand name creates new sales. They dig into field experiments showing branded search ads mostly take credit for purchases brands would have won anyway.Topics covered:   [01:20] "Do Brands Need Search Advertising?" [01:50] Do you click the paid result or the organic one? [02:25] Nine field experiments across eight D2C brands [03:40] Turning off branded ads: zero effect on sales in 20 tests [04:35] The fake mattress brand experiment [05:30] Where to move your search budget instead To learn more, visit marketingarchitects.com/podcast or subscribe to our newsletter at marketingarchitects.com/newsletter.  Resources: Beknazarova, I., Cohen, J., Driesener, C., Hartnett, N., & Bellman, S. (2027). Do brands need search advertising? Journal of Business Research, 218, 116485. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2026.116485  Get more research-backed marketing strategies by subscribing to The Marketing Architects on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.