American publisher Steve Forbes once famously said: ”Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business.” It’s critical to protect your brand; otherwise, you could suffer from lost sales and even negative feedback from customers.
When it comes to pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, competitors can bid on your brand keywords, potentially funneling sales away from your business and over to theirs. What’s worse, you can’t complain to your PPC platform of choice about it! PPC advertisers are typically happy to let your competitors bid on your keywords as it means more opportunities for customers, as well as more revenue for them.
Here are some ways to protect your brand and ensure that any sales made are rightfully yours.
Arrange an agreement with competitors
One of the easiest ways to protect your brand is to come to an agreement with your competitors that you will not bid on their brand keywords and vice versa. Of course, they’re not legally obligated to accept, but if you’re on good terms with them, it may be worth a try!
Bid on your own branded keywords
As the company that owns the brand, you have a significant advantage over your competitors. Because you use your branded keywords across your website, your quality score will naturally be higher. A higher quality score means that you are more likely to rank in the number one position, even with a lower bid than your rivals.
In fact, a quality score of ten out of ten for a keyword will mean that you save 50% on it!
Bid on your keywords as high as you are willing to do so. Doing this will push up the average cost per click for your branded keywords, potentially putting competitors off bidding. Do keep an eye on your spending though, just to make sure your competitors aren’t clicking on your ads fraudulently. If they are, we can help!
Utilize target outranking share
If a stubborn competitor is spending a lot of money on your keywords, there is a valuable Google Ads bidding strategy you can use – target outranking share. This strategy automates your bidding against a specific domain, bidding as aggressively as possible to beat your rival.
It can be a costly strategy, but it could be worth it if it means that you win sales over your competitors.
Keep an eye out for trademarks
If your company name or product names are trademarked, then you can potentially force a review.
For example, while Google Ads allows trademarks to be used as keywords, they may restrict the use of a trademark in any ad copy. The rules depend on the PPC advertiser, the region you are in, and the scope of the advertisement.
We hope that these tips will help you take action to protect your brand and save money.
Even though bidding on a competitor’s keywords isn’t illegal, there are steps you can take to make it less appealing!