top of funnel keywords are going to make millions for a lot of brands in 2026
instead of paying $5 per click for transactional terms, you target $0.07 searches that everyone writes off as “low-intent.”
here’s the full playbook:
we're getting $0.07 clicks because we've found a traffic opportunity that most brands ignore.
99% of them compete over MOF and BOF searches on Google.
“protein powder”
“running shoes”
“collagen powder”
“women’s skirt”
these are crowded, competitive, and super expensive
meanwhile, no one even considers bidding on TOF queries.
- "how to lose weight"
- "what causes bloating"
- "best way to get more protein"
- "natural ways to lower blood pressure"
these queries have 5-20x the search volume, and they cost a fraction of what bottom funnel terms do.
we’re helping our clients go after keywords in the 50k to 250k monthly search range, paying under $0.5 cpc
here’s the play:
start by listing 10+ pain points, problems, or outcomes your product addresses.
every single one of those can be an angle the market is searching for.
go to your search term report, filter for “contains” and drop in these identifiers:
"How to"
"Best"
"Tips"
"Guide"
"Benefits"
"Side effects"
"What is"
"When to"
you'll see relevant terms that you could leverage.
then go to keyword planner to find and validate more searches
what you’re hunting for are:
- problem searches (“how to fix X,” “what causes X,” “why do i have X,” etc)
- solution searches (“best way to X,” “natural ways to,” “tips for X,” etc)
- educational searches (“benefits of,” “signs of x,” “X explained,” etc)
once you have those, build advertorials, listicles, or blogs around the topic.
then launch two campaigns.
first, set up a standard search campaign
use manual cpc bidding and keep the max CPC around 10-20c in the beginning.
start with phrase and exact match only around the terms you just researched.
exclude every brand variation from this campaign.
write ad copy to match the informational intent.
you can also layer in a dynamic search ads/ai max campaign with brand terms added as negatives.
this works best if you have a collection of advertorials, blogs or listicles with strong SEO.
this is one of the cheapest and most scalable ways to acquire new customers right now.
we’ve used this exact setup to help brands push into 7 and 8 figures.