Background
Paid search was already generating strong revenue for Avanti West Coast, while branded keywords accounted for 23.5% of media spend.
At the same time, AI Overviews and changing search behavior were putting additional pressure on organic visibility, making the balance between paid and organic search increasingly important.
Challenge
The goal was to reduce branded search from 23.5% of media spend to below 5%, while maintaining a minimum ROAS of £14 and growing non-brand revenue.
Across thousands of keywords, that meant continuously adjusting paid activity as organic visibility changed, without giving up valuable traffic in the process.
The solution
Amanda AI connected Google Ads, GA4, and Google Search Console so paid activity could respond to organic rankings and search intent. When organic rankings were strong, paid activity could be reduced, while relevant keywords could be activated again as organic visibility changed.
Budget was reallocated alongside those shifts, reducing spend on branded demand and creating more room for non-brand search.
The results
The first three months showed that reducing branded spend alone was not enough. Brand spend fell by 70% and CPC by 86%, but branded paid-search clicks still increased by 122%, which led to tighter suppression logic and additional exclusions.
Over the following three months, the pattern changed. Branded paid-search clicks fell by 72% while brand spend decreased by a further 34%, and organic revenue increased by 8% YoY.
By the end of the measured period, branded search accounted for just 2.25% of media spend, down 89% from the original level. At the same time, non-brand revenue increased by 97%, organic revenue was up 4.33% YoY, and ROAS reached £18.95, above the original minimum target of £14.
What started as an effort to reduce branded spend ended with a much different balance between paid and organic search, with considerably less budget tied to branded demand and substantially more revenue coming from non-brand search.
