Here is my situation: 1. I am bidding for the top 1-2 spot on my business name. In fact I'm bidding almost double the bid range which AdWords show. 2. I have achieved over 20% CTR over the past 2 weeks on my keyword (which is my business name). 3. AdWords is telling me that my quality score is "10/10 - Excellent" for these keywords. I am bidding so I am ALWAYS #1 for my business name on the PPC order on Google. So, why is it that I'm oftentimes #2 on PPC ranking for this campagin? My competitor is bidding my business name and shows up more often than me as #1. My business name is not trademarked and so Google will not do anything to stop others from bidding on my business name. What am I missing? I've done the obvious: 1. Landing page is optimized. 2. Ad contains all key words and links to my landing page which contains my business name (keyword). 3. Sufficiently high CTR. Please share any insights you may have. Thanks,
IMO, the advisory bids that Google show are usually hopelessly inaccurate. You are best ignoring them and basing your strategy on the actual results you get.. What is the CPC compared to your max bid? If the CPC is about what you are bidding that would suggest you are being outbid by your competitor on those occasions when you appear second. This could be a result of the "dynamic" QS - it is calculated anew each time there is a query for your keyword - such that although Adwords shows 10/10 the actual number used to calculate adrank varies from query to query enough to drop a position occasionally. How long has he been using adwords? It could be, if he has a much longer account history than you and has been performing well, that his bid carries more "weight" (from the historical factors used in the calculations.) for certain queries. It would not matter if it was, Google would still allow bidding on it; as long as the word is not used publicly then there is no contravention of trademark law. I bid on a competitors trademark (and get penalized with low QS) but it brings me some good traffic.
Not quite correct. Yes, Google cannot stop advertisers using a trademarked term as a keyword in the US, UK, Canada and Ireland but it can prevent advertisers bidding on a trademarked term in all other countries. Here in Australia I have got a few keywords suspended due to trademark complaints. If the trademarked term is used in the ad text and the trademark owner lodges a complaint then Google will prevent the ad from showing in ALL countries. Interestingly, the trademark policy does not apply to the display URL. There's an interesting article and explanation at: http://www.ppchero.com/why-trademarked-names-are-allowed-in-google-display-url/
I know but there seems to be some confusion about the actual countries it applies in. Interesting article. It certainly makes sense although I am sure trademark law still applies and I imagine it would be possible to legally force an advertiser to desist from using it in the display url also - the trademark owner would have to take action against the advertiser directly and then, presumably, Google would also be liable if they continued displaying the ad. I am not sure of the law elsewhere but in the UK the principle behind trademarking is to prevent confusing or misleading the public. Therefore, theoretically, there is no infringement if you simply bid on the keyword (since it is not being displayed).
Its a very interesting question and one that is difficult to find a definitive answer to. I have several search keywords for which we are mostly at no 1 on Adwords My control panel shows that we are getting position 1-3 and I find that this is sufficient to generate good sales The problem with Adwords is that it can be a license to spend money and it requires carefull monitoring. On one keyword we were spending around $850 a month and we were 98% no 1 and got areasonable return via sales revenue. Lately our account for the same keywords has risen to $1600+ per month almost double but we dont seem to be getting more sales. i think that competitors come and go in Adwords and often when they start they are so hell bent on getting the number 1 spot that they dont realise that they need the corresponding amount of sales to justify the expenditure Adwords can be a fantastic sales generating tool or it can be a license to spend money