I do referrals for senior living in Ohio. A lot of these facilities get good web traffic and it would be super cheap to use their names for an Adwords campaign. I would be the only company in the sponsored section. Considering these people are already looking via the web at the faciliy would this be worth my time? There are about 50+ facilities but i figured i could ad their keywords all to one group and have it be very cheap. Any thoughts?
This used to be kind of a dicey proposition legally, but some recent court cases that were settled in the US in Googles favor has made it a much better proposition. My little disclaimer, I am not a lawyer, and you should consult one before using any ones trademarked terms. That being said, my experience doing this in a lot of niches is, definately don't use any dynamic insertion type ads, because you could inadvertently create a trademark violation, but in the real world if you have a decent ad, and you put that ad group with all those competitors terms in it, you'll get some traffic. It is also possible that you may get a cease and desist letter from one of the competitors. This does leave you potentially liable for a trademark infringement lawsuit however. Again, I am not an attorney so you should check this out. I can just tell you that I have done this in many niches, and most of the time it works fine. But the law is very different in different parts of the world and stricter in other countries so keep this in mind.
I would not be using their names in the Ad, just as keywords to make the Ad pop up. I figured if somebody is googling a local facility in my region it has zero competition when it comes to google ads popping up.... i could be up there for .05 a click and offer a facility comparison in the region.... figured it would be a nice touch to the person that is already looking.
I have seen the practice of competitors names being used not only for pay per click but also for search engine ranking. Nothing like having a lower price and coming up just after your competitors.
There's no legal problems bidding on a competitor's name or brand. However, it doesn't work. If they typed your competitor's name, they already know about them and are already sold on them (or in the final buying step, deciding on two or three finalists). That means they are much less likely to click your ad and if they do, much less likely to buy from you. Your specific situation may be different so give it a try.
I disagree. If you are on a PPC model, only the people who aren't yet sold will bother checking out your website. The people who are sure of what they are looking for, you don't pay for. Using competitors' names as keywords can work for sure, if done carefully.
Say I want an Acer laptop computer. Acer is the only brand I want. So I naturally type "acer laptop computer" in a search engine. You sell Dell computers and bid on the keyword I used and your ad shows up saying "We Have Dell Laptops". I'm not very likely to click on that ad. Of course you don't pay for me not clicking. But your quality suffers as a consequence making future clicks more expensive. And if I happen to click the ad out of curiosity, I'm less likely to buy from you because I've already made up my mind I want an Acer and not a Dell. You would have a hard time convincing me to switch. I have the data from clients selling all sorts of things, tens of thousands of impressions that show the click rate is lower on such keywords and the conversion rate dramatically lower as well. I'd be very careful. For one thing, your keyword relevancy portion of the QS will take a hit.
Yes, there are alot of negatives to bidding on a competitors terms, like QS and resulting ppc, ett as Lucid said. But, given the right situation where you dont have competition for these terms, it could be an effective strategy. Test it like anything else, and see if it's profitable. Setup a control group so you can test these ads against other ads going to the same landing page. I have seen success with these ads. It's best to casually refer to your competition(based on whatever your differentiation is), but not to name it specifically as others have said. Just bid on the keywords that trigger the ad, and send it to an appropriate landing page.
I think Fletch pretty much nailed it. Lucid, your example is just that - one example. In other scenarios, your resaoning might not hold. The classic case would be where one brand so dominates a market that users may not even be aware that there are alternatives, and will by default search on the market leader's brand name. So for example in photo editing, Photoshop so dominates that many potential users search on Photoshop when they may well be happy with a (much cheaper) alternative. Besides, your argument misses something else. Even if using your competitors' brand names as keywords is less good than your other keywords, all that matters is if they are profitable in their own right. Sometimes they will be, and sometimes not. So just the fact that they are worse is not sufficient to show they are not worth doing.
Yes, it is an example, one to illustrate the point. I agree each situation can be different. Your own Photoshop example could be one. Doesn't hurt to test it out. And yes, you do want them to be profitable. But that's just what my data shows: overall, they are not profitable.
> Trade Mark Names Are Not Allowed You can bid on them but not use them in your ad's title or description. The trademark owner has to request it. I doubt very much that in the OP's case, that would be the case, although as recommended, I would not mention it in the ad just the same.
Like I said, this is legally kind of a grey area, and just because Google pretty much allows it doesn't mean that the competitors can't come after you for trademark infringement directly. It has happened. There's a good chance that they will lose their case too, which is why I think its important to point out that this technique does have some risk. On the reverse, my own experience has shown that these type of ad groups do work, and most of the time the worst thing that happens is you get a cease and desist letter from the competitors attorney. You can then at that point either stop advertising on that one keyword, or hold your ground. And usually only 2-3 out of 20 competitors will even bother with monitoring the ads that show up under their names. I just feel that it is important to point out the broader legal implications as well as the benefits so you can make your own decision.