Businesses using Google Ads to bid on the brand name of their competitors is happening more than ever.
In many cases, this is happening unintentionally due to changes in the Google ads keyword policy, that most people do not know about.
Picture 1. Google Search interface shows the "GoDaddy" sponsored link for "crazy domains" search query.
Are competitors bidding on your brand name?
Do the check yourself on both mobile and desktop, whilst using incognito mode
Pick the most popular brand name searchers from “suggested” results. Also type in your domain name directly like crazydomains.com.au.
Picture 2. Suggested searches for "crazy domains" search query.
What should you do if a competitor is bidding on your brand?
Step 1
In many instances it’s not intentional, so it’s a good idea to drop the competitor a note and politely ask them to negative your “brand” from their Google Ads campaign.
E.g., ask go daddy to negative the keyword “crazy”.
Step 2
Check if the competitor’s ad is misleading or using dynamic keyword search which could mean that may be “passing off” as your company. If this is the case, best to inform the competitor of the situation and ask them to stop, or get a 3rd party legal opinion.
Step 3
If it’s an intentional strategy from your competitor, set up a dedicated google ads campaign for your brand name, so you always appear number 1.
This will reduce any clicks to the competitor, plus make them more expensive.
Step 4
Invest the time to understand how important winning market share is to your business, rather than growing the overall market size. This information will determine how important a competitor targeting strategy is for your business, and how you should position your organisation.
See example below of a very specific message and landing page strategy being used by Asana against Monday.com.
Picture 3. Example of a very specific message and landing page strategy being used by Asana against Monday.com
Thanks for reading ROI Blog.