Measuring the returns to search engine marketing accurately is difficult, but one study suggested that if eBay were to suspend its branded search ads, the volume of traffic to the site would remain virtually unchanged. Based on a field test involving a website for automotive information in the US, this column argues that money spent on search engine marketing by smaller brands may be more effective than previously documented. Only about half of the traffic normally flowing through branded search ads still flowed to the site when it relied only on organic search links.