Brand Bidding : To "do" and not to"do"

As digital marketing professionals I am sure you would come across this critical question some time or the other.

"Brand Bidding" on search engine marketing.

I dont believe there is a straight forward answer. "Why!! you ask" ??

ok. lets do some soul searching . 

some of the thoughts that come to your mind are as follows.

On the bright side

1. Better - if its me : the potential of  robbing you of your sales and the issue of customer loyalty is very high if competition starts bidding on your brand name.
2. Ads are ads. : One good thing about advertising is that you control the message and you can take the user straight to the offer page and provide a better user journey.
3. Link saturation: Increase the probability of the user to click on your band, by bidding on your brand you potentially double your opportunity.
4. Higher top of the mind recall: by adding an other link on the search page you are letting the user know you are serious about your business and he can just do a one step shopping. If required provide a clear choice to the user and reducing distraction

On the down side. 

1. Anyone can get a good CTR of your own brand keyword : Ask any one who runs a brand based PPC campaign the CTR's would always be off the charts compared to non brand keywords.
2. Conversions for sure will be higher on your brand term : Same hold's true for conversion.
3. Money Spent = Money Spent : If your brand keyword get you the first link on the search page natural listing then why spend money to get the same traffic. 
4. being mislead : your agency might mislead you on believing that your cost per conversion is very low. ;-)

here is the puzzle that you need to solve before talking a call. 

1. Are you eroding your "Own" margins by spending monies on your "own" brand bidding.
2. Are you able to attribute sales to the last vist and also see the user journey. eg.three clicks on non brand and the last one was brand.(it will help you get out of brand bidding after some time).
3. Are you ethically bidding for other companies brand keyword.
4. by adding brand bidding your overall CPA will go lower than management expectation...[For some this is important.]

So what's your pick... To do or not to...

let me know, I am still trying to figure this one out... HUh!!

-----

If you have the answer : think of this one .... Should you allow your partners to start bidding on your brand keyword.... \\!!//