1: If you are selling your company for a multiple of your top line sales, then it’s okay to lose money in the short term. The nitwit buyer is going to reward you for losing that money. But if you are selling your company for a multiple of earnings, then you are setting yourself up to be punished with a lower sales price due to the net losses sustained on your investment in counterproductive, unbranded keywords.

2: If your data clearly demonstrates that customer acquisition through the use of unbranded keywords is worth the initial loss due to the repeat purchases of that customer, then you are using unbranded keywords as though they were a form of mass media. In this case, you have one more question to answer: Are unbranded keywords the highest and best use of those dollars, or would mass media deliver a higher ROI? Test it honestly. Trust your data.

3. If you want to take the sale away from a competitor so that the competitor does not grow. (Okay, but why not just let your competitor invest in those unbranded keywords and lose money on all those transactions? They will go broke faster! Haven’t you got this figured out yet? When you bid against your competitor on unbranded keywords, you’re fighting over an outcome that no one wants! Should you bid against them just to drive up the price they pay?… Possibly, although this could easily backfire.)