So you have been running ads for a while now and starting to see the results you want. Then one day wake, search for your company’s brand name in Google just to find your competitor is somehow appearing for your brand with a paid search ad and poaching a large percentage of your traffic.

For most people, this is alarming! How is this possible? Surely they are breaking Googles advertising policies!  

Sadly the long and short of it is that they arent and report them all you want Google will do very little about it if anything at all....So, what next?

Since the ban on companies bidding on their competitors’ branded keywords ended in 2008. It's been open season just as long as they don’t mention a registered trademark in the ad copy or try to dupe people into thinking they are you. 

This leaves only a couple of options available to you to help protect your brand name and the valuable traffic that comes with it......

The simplest and most effective solution is running your own branded campaign. Yes it seems strange to have to pay for your own brand name but if the other option is risking your customers going somewhere else, it's a bit of a no brainer for me....

For the most part because its your brand name you will always be able to get a better quality score and ad rank for these search terms than your competitors ever will, so the risk to reward balance on targeting these search terms is far more in your favour than it is for the competition. So just do it. Because branded PPC ads are an absolute must. Especially if you wholesale products to other retailers. 

Be careful when doing this as its likely to go hand in hand with some relatively high CPC's but in my experience is also likely to be a more effective way of persuading you competitor to stop targeting your brand than a nicely worded request to them ever will be whilst at the same time giving you a chance of recouping the sales they have poached from you whilst running the ads that started all of this off....

If you go down this route, just be sure to keep a very close eye on the costs and ROI you are getting. Because if you leave it unattended for too long the costs incurred might get out of control and all of that budget might have been better used when put towards your more valuable keywords.

Personally I recommend everybody to do this. BUT its my option 3 for a reason.....The length of time this can take will make very little difference to your current problem and by the time the trademark has been approved you will be hundreds if not thousands of pounds out of pocket. So get registered as soon as you get a chance but don't expect this option to help any time soon!

Well there you have it. I hope this has helped with your brand names search concerns. If you have any questions please just let us know by giving us a call or message us here.