Bidding on brand and competitor keywords in PPC can help protect your brand and steal traffic from competitors, but should you? This article will look at when there is a case for and against its use.
What types of brand and competition keywords are there?
Brand and competitor keywords have four variations:
Your own business brand. Your competitor’s trademark. Third Party Brands You Sell. Third-party brands that you don’t sell but that compete directly with the brands you make.
For example, if we put it in a real situation, it might look like:
Space NK – Your Own Brand Sephora – Competitors’ Brand Aveda, Cowshed & Elemis – Third Party Brands Offered bareMinerals, Chanel, Bobbi Brown – Third Party Brands Not Available
This article will focus on offers for trademarks.
Dig deeper: Why you should invest in branded keywords even if your business ranks #1 on Google
What are the advantages and disadvantages of bidding in terms of branding?
Brand bidding in paid search advertising has both advantages and disadvantages:
Benefits
Protect your brand position and grab the search result from position 1. Avoid losing brand traffic to competitors. Build trust by having an organic and paid presence while also helping you dominate search results. Higher conversion rates will be seen through brand ads, which can improve account performance data. It also allows you to push leads above the line. More control over how your brand ad is positioned. Although organic promotion can be free, you have limited control over how the search listing appears and which page the user is directed to. Using paid search, you can customize your ad message. Make it easy for your customers to search for your brand. Choose where customers land on your website. For example, if you want cart abandoners to go straight to cart if they return within a certain time period. Cheaper cost per click (CPC), which means you can drive more traffic to your website with your budget.
Disadvantages
Paying for traffic that’s looking for you anyway. It can be frustrating to pay for branded traffic, but by not doing so, you can lose that traffic to competitors. It doesn’t support new customer acquisition as users already know your brand.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of competitive bidding?
On the other hand, bidding competitively in paid search advertising also comes with its own set of advantages and disadvantages.
Benefits
Increase visibility and awareness of your brand. Even if the user doesn’t click, it’s on your mind. Hijack traffic and sales from your competitors.
Disadvantages
It can increase the CPC as the competition for the terms increases. Lower quality score as ad relevance will be low, resulting in higher CPC and lower ad delivery. Lower click-through rates. Lower conversion rates. It can lead to retaliatory bids on your own brand.
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When to make an offer according to the brand and the conditions of the competition
Deciding when to bid on brand and competitors in your paid search strategy depends on your specific business goals, competitive landscape, and overall marketing strategy. Here are some considerations:
When competitors are also bidding on your brand
If a competitor starts bidding on your brand’s terms and you don’t have an ad presence, your organic listing isn’t always enough. In this scenario, you may start losing branded traffic to competitors. By running your own brand ads, you can protect your brand’s position and traffic. Your competitors will have little ad relevance, so you can regain the top position by launching your own ad.
When you’ve been running brand activity on other channels
If you’ve pushed budget into brand awareness activity, you want to make sure you’re capitalizing on the increase in brand searches it should generate.
When you want to target specific audience groups
Using brand and competitor terms along with remarketing audiences can help you personalize your ad and landing pages. This can increase the likelihood of clicks and conversions.
If you have a generic brand
If your brand name has multiple meanings or you share it with other brands in different industries (eg, Monday’s, Domino’s), you may struggle to rank organically. Bidding on your brand terms can help combat this and show you more prominently and frequently. It won’t combat all of the co-branding issues if the other brands are also bidding, but it will give you a better chance to be featured.
Dig deeper: Solving an age-old SEO-PPC problem: How to bid for your brand based on lift
When you may not need or want to bid on brand and competitor terms
There are scenarios where bidding on brand and competitor terms may not be necessary or desirable. Here are some situations where you may choose to avoid bidding on these terms:
When there is no competitive bidding for your brand
If there are no competing bids and you maintain your top organic position, your budget may be better placed elsewhere. You can check your competitor’s bidding activity using the auction information and ad preview and diagnosis tools.
If you have a mutual agreement with your competitors
When relations are friendly, agreements are sometimes made not to bid on each other’s trademarks.
If your offer is not unique, competitive or compelling
In this case, you may not have the strength to take clicks away from the competition if users are already searching for them.
If you have a low conversion rate
Let’s say your conversion rate is low for your existing brand, organic or direct traffic. In this case, you’ll be in a better position to invest in improving it before you try to bid on competitive terms.
What to consider if you decide to make an offer
If you decide to bid on brand and competitor terms in your paid search campaigns, it’s important to keep several key considerations in mind:
Make sure you don’t overpay for traffic. Try different bidding strategies. I’ve found Maximize Clicks to be the most effective, but it varies by brand.
Add negative keywords. You don’t want to be paying for traffic looking for places to post complaints or jobs, for example.
Be smart about which competitive keywords you target. For example, people looking for competitor reviews or alternatives.
Use audience feedback. Watch your site traffic and customers if you bid on competitors.
Consider and adjust your usual settingssuch as ad schedules.
The pros and cons of bidding on brand and competitor keywords
Brand and competitor keywords can be important to your paid search strategy. You should review your competitors’ activity, business goals, and position to decide if the offers are right for your brand.
In addition to keywords on the search network, you can also consider how your ads appear in brand searches and competitors in shopping ads, and how you can use competitors to create custom segments.
Dig deeper: 5 tips for effective PPC bidding on a budget
The views expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
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About the author
Holly leads the paid media team at Anicca Digital and has specialized in paid search since 2015. He has experience planning, strategizing and delivering campaigns across a multitude of channels including Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Meta, LinkedIn and AWIN. Coming from a data mindset, Holly also has extensive knowledge and experience using Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager and Google Looker Studio. As a marketing and retail graduate, Holly has a particular interest in e-commerce. With his hands in delivering client projects, he stays up to date with new ways of working and best practices and shares them with interest as a regular speaker on Anicca Digital’s weekly webinar schedule .
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