How to Protect Your Brand From Competitors on Google Ads

With the rise of AI overviews and the increase in paid activity on Google, people bidding on your brand name can mean your organic results end up sneaking further and further down the page, whilst visitors who were looking for your name end up clicking on competitor and being snapped away.

Frustrating, and whilst it can be tempting to run ads on competitor names yourself, the first priority should be to protect your own brand first, and make sure people find you as intended.

Why your brand traffic is so important

If your brand is well known enough to gain a good volume of searches, your brand keywords will likely be an essential source of low-cost clicks from users with immediate conversion intent. They are looking for you specifically, so this traffic is among the most valuable to capture and safeguard.

In particular, if you use the Google Ads Last Click attribution model (most advertisers do, but should they?), your brand campaigns will have a tremendous influence on your account’s overall performance. 

How can competitors bid on my brand?

We’ve often been asked here at Evoluted how other companies can get away with advertising on their brand name. The honest part of it all, is that there’s nothing strictly stopping people from using brand names as keywords for their targeting (e.g. bidding on “Google” as a keyword).

What they cannot do, is use your brand name in their ad copy - this is where restrictions come into play.

However, this doesn’t stop them from looking over your site, seeing what product or service you offer, and then running a generic headline that might capture some people looking for what you do

For example, if someone was searching for Evoluted, rather than use our agency name, they might use the headline “Digital Marketing Agency” or “eCommerce Services”.

So long as the competitor is not pretending to be you, or misleading customers, they are allowed to run ads against your name.

Why doesn't everyone do this?

There are a few reasons, but two are most important as to why this isn’t regular practice across all accounts.

First, bidding on other brand names can be expensive. Google will usually give priority to the actual Brand itself rather than a competitor due to relevance, meaning the competitor is usually bidding more to get higher in the search results.

Secondly, conversion rates can struggle depending on the industry you’re in. If someone is searching directly for a brand name, the chances are that they already have a loyalty to the brand, or know exactly what they’re looking for.

To click on an ad and be taken to a different company's website after searching for a specific brand, can sometimes feel misleading and people can just bounce off to try and find the brand they were actually looking for.

But nonetheless, it can also work sometimes for businesses, so it’s important to test things for yourself to see what works - in the meantime…

How can you protect your brand?

The setup of a Brand campaign is usually pretty straightforward - you go to make a Search campaign, use your direct Brand name as the keywords targeted, and then create an ad that uses your brand name and USPs to run when people search for you.

For example, we might use “Evoluted” or “Evoluted Agency” as our keywords. By bidding on your own brand, you have a good chance to start showing at the top of the search results again, rather than being pushed down by other companies.

As mentioned above, due to relevancy, bidding on your own brand is usually pretty cheap, so these campaigns don’t need huge budgets most of the time.

That being said, it also depends on how general your brand name is - something like “Sheffield Shoes” will likely pick up a lot of searches for people who aren’t looking directly for your brand, and will see more competitors in the bid.

What are some things to note about Brand Campaigns?

When it comes to performance, your Brand campaign is likely to perform well, and if you’re looking at the overall account, can overinflate performance if you’re not accounting for it.

It’s important to take out, or at least understand the impact your Brand campaign has on revenue, conversions and ROAS when it comes to reporting, and not have it lumped in with your other activity.

Something else to keep in mind, is that you should only look to run a Brand campaign if competitors are actually bidding on your brand name. 

If competitors aren’t doing so, all you’re likely to end up doing is paying for brand traffic that would come through organically regardless.

Every so often, I’d recommend doing checks on who actually shows up in the results, and if you start to see competitors, then it makes sense to run a Brand campaign, if not, I would hold off and focus your attention elsewhere.

Try an automated bid rule

One way to make sure your brand ads are consistently positioning better than your competitors’ ads are is to set up an automated bidding rule. With these rules, you can adjust your bids automatically on a daily or weekly basis to ensure your average position is 1.

Target your competitors too

If you have been unable to reach an agreement with your competitors to stop bidding on your brand, consider targeting their keywords in return.

This will have a similarly negative impact on the performance of their campaigns. If this causes them problems, you may be able to come to a of mutual agreement to leave each other’s brand space alone. 

Again, there is no guarantee that this will work. If your brand gets a lot more searches than theirs, they may see the traffic lost from their own brand as acceptable to get a slice of your own.

What about trademarked brands?

While competitors bidding on your brand as a keyword is fair game, advertisers using your trademarked brand term in their ads is not permitted, unless you have given them permission via Google. 

If your brand is a registered trademark and is being used illegally by other advertisers, you can report this to Google. 

You can also find the Trademark Complaint Form here.

To submit a complaint, you will require the following: 

• Your name

• Your full company name

• Your company address

• Your email address

• Your trademark

• The region where your trademark is protected

• Your trademark Registration Number

• Examples of the infringing ad – including Google’s tracking URL. This can be found by right clicking the ad title and copying the link address from the drop-down menu.

You will then receive an automated email from Google acknowledging your complaint. Google is not clear how long their review process is, but you should hear back within a few days. 

If you do not get a response, try calling Google Support – you can find their number in the Google Ads interface under the help icon.

Any questions?

We hope this guide has been useful, and that it can help you protect your brand space against those who try to steal traffic from it. It is a challenge most companies with a name for themselves will face in PPC, and not one that can necessarily be prevented, but these guidelines should help you limit the damage caused to your own performance. 

If you require expert support with your next PPC or Paid Media campaign, check out our Paid Media services today.