Hi All, I'm the co-owner of (Internet Gateway of South Beach, which specializes in low cost dedicated servers. I'd like to get some feedback on the idea of purchasing Google adwords using the names of competitors that are more established than us. As an example, there's a pretty horrid company known as "Infolink, Colopronto, or Serverpronto" who also markets low cost dedicated servers; we can view them as a competitor in this huge market. Are there any drawbacks to purchasing keywords with their company name so that when people search for them, our adwords are displayed to the user? I noticed that when doing a search for "rackspace.com" that advertisements for calpop.com and apptix.com come up, so it appears that this isn't a new concept that's groundbreaking, but as a relative newbie, I would like to get some feedback. Thanks for any help! Regards, John C. Young
No problem man, I sure hope that it works out for you. I don't see any drawbacks to this idea, and I'm hoping that those smarter than ourselves with SEO reply back with their blessing on it. Keep your fingers crossed and take care! John C. Young Managing Director
There is no problem at all. In fact almost all of established name, when you search in google, you'll find their competitor in the sponsored search. I've been doing that for a while and i don't see any drawback. It's even adding value to the searcher when they only know 1 brand.
The main drawback is that you are likely to get a tiny CTR, since people are actively searching for something that isn't you. The keywords will therefore get a low QS, and will drag down the QS of the other keywords in the Ad Group. Therefore, make sure you have the keywords in a separate Ad Group to avoid negative spillovers to more legit keywords. Also, bear in mind that while you can use your competitors' names as keywords, you can't use them in the ads. If Google find you doing this, you might get slapped, warned or just deactivated - they can be very nasty when they want to be. So don't put trademarked competitors names in the ads. Having said all that, you can do quite well, because the traffic will be nearly well targetted. Don't expect miracles though - most people who search for a brand, want that brand.
Alex is absolutely right. Those searching on that brand are already sold on it so the result will be low CTR resulting in low QS, high CPC and conversion rates will be low as well. Bidding on competitor names or brands in my experience almost always results in low returns, no profits.
Although your ctr will be lower than usual you can improve by doing the following: 1. optimize your landing page to your competitors KW's -> higher quality score -> lower prices... 2. write ads that only focus in the services you are offering and not in your company name & Also try to write about your low prices.
I am not sure if any of you knew that this practice of including brand names(copyrighted/trademarked) as your triggering keywords was not allowed by Google untill they lifted the ban. The ban was lifted on 5th May 2008 in UK/Irelend. I am not sure about the rest of the world. Now, it has two implications- if you are a small advertiser using bigger competitors brand name, you might benefit from some of their search traffic. What if your bigger competitor hijack your brand name by bidding ridiculous amounts to kick you out of Google pages? I have noticed one such case in the UK, where eventually Crown court had to intervene to pass a 'cease and desist' order to stop the bigger company from using such a tactics. This is indeed great for affiliates. They can use brand names to trigger their ads.
Shoemoney had a post that said when promoting a local bricks and mortar business that some of their best roi came when they would bid the business names of other local businesses (competitors) If your selling an online service you better make a pretty good case for the click in your ad otherwise it will be tough.
This isn't a big deal and this is not new too. Follow the steps to get the most out of it. > Create a separate landing page with good structuring to get a lead. > This page should have high deals or offers that can attract your competitor's customer. > Now advertise this page and watch out the conversion for your competitor's keyword. Let me know if you need any help.
You're in a competitive space and advertising on those terms will be expensive. You might try concatenating on "reviews" or "ratings" or "comparison" to the competitor name, like "rackspace reviews". It's a way to target the shoppers who haven't made a final decision on their hosting choice.
A lot of people are doing that already, but it is not recommened to put a trademark which is not yours in the ad's text.