Bidding on competitors brand terms in Google AdWords
Posted by clairejarrett | Posted in Adwords, competitors | Posted on 05-05-2010
Tags: Adwords, bidding, competitor, names
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I’m often asked if it is possible to bid on competitor names or trademarks.
It certainly is possible (here in the UK). I run many AdWords campaigns for clients where their cheapest conversions come from those who were actually seeking a competitor.
However, do be aware that they will soon recognise the tactic and start doing it back to you. This will very quickly mean you need to start running your own brand name campaign to prevent your competitor stealing your traffic.
Having said that, when you create your ad copy you are not permitted to use trademarked terms such as the word IPhone, Sony or anything where the trademark owner has asked Google to prevent people using their brand in advert copy.
I am also often asked if it is actually ethical to bid on a competitor’s brand. Only you can make this decision. In addition – watch out for potential problems with bidding on competitor brand terms, which can arise due to the fact you are likely to receive a low quality score from Google due to irrelevancy. A way around this is to consider placing their brand terms in your advert somewhere (unless of course it’s trademarked in which case you won’t be able to).
If you are priced more competitively than your competitor, you should be able to acquire cheaper conversions by bidding on their names, so consider testing this theory out today.
I certainly agree that in some cases bidding on competitors terms can be very beneficial to campaign performance.
However, do bare in mind the potential legal rammifications of appearing to try to impersonate the competitor’s brand. DO NOT mention their name in the ad copy, and DO NOT use keyword insertion for the ads. If you do, you will likely hear from the competitor’s lawyers!
Yes there can be problems if including a competitor name in the ad copy. I have 1 client whose competitor has built their entire business around the brand name of my client – currently trying to get THAT stopped obviously!
And of course be aware that in many situations click-through from competitor terms will be poor, resulting in low quality scores. Be sure the account can handle it quality-wise, and segment your campaigns well!
Hi Joel – absolutely! The competitors campaign is often the lowest quality score campaign for precisely that reason.
Adwords is really a great way to advertise and it is way cheaper than Facebook Ads,–
i both use Adwords and FB Ads, facebook ads are much more expensive compared to adwords “”
I don’t think it is really ethical to bid one someone else’s name. The person searching is obviously looking for them and you’re kind of tricking them in to making them think you are your competitor….just my opinion