Why don't national brands have PPC ads that target their names, while smaller brands do?
-
Google's policy is to allow other businesses to run PPC ads against your business name, even when trademarked, so long as the ads don't include the trademarked name. At least that's what I have experienced and read online.
Source: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/AdWords/thread?tid=55e2b4bf90ae9585&hl=en
Why do so many national brands have no PPC ads showing on their names in Google searches?
- http://www.google.com/search?gcx=c&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=best+buy
- http://www.google.com/search?gcx=c&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=victorias+secret
- http://www.google.com/search?gcx=c&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=office+depot
And so on.
Smaller brands, even when trademarked, are awash in competitors targeting their names:
- http://www.google.com/search?gcx=c&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=nally+used+cars
- http://www.google.com/search?gcx=c&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=la+jolla+cosmetic+surgery+centre
Consider these two hotels:
- http://www.google.com/search?gcx=c&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=ritz+carlton+new+york
- http://www.google.com/search?gcx=c&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=hotel+3030+new+york
There are two slightly different questions in play here, as I have clients I'd like to better protect against this type of PPC poaching:
- So, are there any different policies at Google Adwords RE: national brands and having competitor's ads show on their names?
- How do the major brands block the advertisers on their names?
Thanks!
-
Something I experienced when running an in-house ppc campaign for a smaller brand was that big companies aren't afraid to send out C&D letters from their very expensive lawyers if you bid on their branded terms (not using their name in the text). While there is certainly no law saying you can't bid on a branded term, a smaller brand is going to cave because they won't be taking on a giant in court.
-
The ads that rank best may appear at the top of the page. In the screenshot you've attached, the top result there with the orange background is an Office Depot ad. Branded searches rank very well, so you'll usually see that companies result up there at the top of the SERPs.
In my experience, bidding on competitors branded terms does not convert well. People are looking for that site, and not your site. My experience is not in e-commerce though; if you sell shoes, and you bid on "buy nikes", you're may be doing it right.
-
Excellent point.
-
Thank you for your good responses.
It is the last situation mentioned - why PPC advertisers are not targeting other national brands (Brand A paying to show on Brand B) that I was primarily asking about.
It may be that I am simply being filtered out by the PPC ads that are in the system for brand keywords (wisely, I might add, if that's the case). But I can reproduce these results using proxies, and I can reproduce them using different geographic locations. The brand pages are often much quieter than any small brand keyword search and my mentioned ones show almost devoid of competing ads.
If a brand were paying for top position, that hardly precludes other ads in the lower positions on the page.
Any other thoughts? Is the lack of competing PPC ads perhaps the result of lots of direct contact, asking other advertisers to lay off their trademark targeting?
Are you able to reproduce my national brand searches with PPC ads each time? Here's a screenshot. I see only one brand ad for each of my big brand examples:
http://markup.io/v/s46jhgayjdbn -
John nailed it.
The examples you shared where small companies searches show competitive ads are highly influenced by the search term. For the first three searches you used the company names "best buy", "victoria's secret" and "office depot". The other searches you used more generic terms which naturally trigger ads. "Nelly Used Cars" is showing ads, but "Nelly" isn't the trigger. "Used Cars" is the trigger. Try the search again for just "Nelly", then try another search for "Used Cars". The ads have nothing to do with "Nelly". The same feedback applies to "La Jolla Cosmetic Surgery Center".
-
I believe you are asking why 'BIG BRAND A' doesn't have competitors bidding for 'BIG BRAND A' related search terms -- vs why 'BIG BRAND A' doesn't bid on their own brand name. On first read I thought it was the latter, but now I see your intent (correct me if I'm wrong).
For the latter, big brands are in paid search for their own brand queries all the time. The examples you showed even have it. The cost is so low, and there are some added brand positioning arguments.
The trickier question is with competitors bidding on other competitors brand terms. e.g. Fredrick's of Hollywood bidding on 'Victoria's Secret' etc. I think some of the other responses addressed this.
-
Just opinion here...
Big brands are often arrogant and presumptuous that you will look for their website before clicking - and they are often correct with that thinking.
The little guy often must stand on a chair, waive his hands, jump up and down while shouting to get the consumer's attention away from the big brand.
... and most importantly... these aggressive little guys are often very smart.
(this post is written assuming that the little guy is advertising his own brand name and NOT the brand name of the big competitor)
-
First, in answer to your questions:
- There are no different policies other than what you stated above. You can not use a companies trademarked name in ad text, but you can use their names in keywords.
- They don't block them. By entering the auction, they'll drive up the price for their competitors. Since their quality scores are higher, they'll win the auctions with cheaper bids.
If your sales are pretty steady, you can run a test to see if running a branded campaign bidding on your own name is worthwhile. Your organic traffic will go down a bit, but since people are looking for your company, your keyword quality scores will be very high, and you should be winning the auctions with relatively cheap bids. If anyone else is bidding on your brand keywords, it's almost always a good idea for you to be in there as well. Otherwise, it's worth testing to see if it has a positive ROI.
Your examples are a bit flawed... a query like "Nallys used cars" is going to trigger for all broad and phrase keywords targeting "used cars", which many companies are going to target. Also "la jolla cosmetic surgery centre" has "cosmetic surgery" which lots of people are bidding on.
Also, I saw ads for all of your examples above which you didn't see ads for (Best Buy, Victoria's Secret, and Office Depot).
-
Hi Cake --
Google's AdWords trademark policy is pretty extensive, and is summarized here: http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=16316. The policies apply regardless of business size.
As someone who has had the conversation many times with clients, I can tell you that whether or not a company bids on their own brand terms is an ongoing debate. The "PPC poaching" that you point out is the very reason that I almost always recommend setting up a brand campaign in PPC, but some clients refuse to "pay" for clicks on their brand terms when they have such a strong organic presence. My view? It's a very, very inexpensive way to ensure that you at least have the top paid spot on searches for your own brand name.
Bottom line: If you don't see a PPC ad on a business' brand name, it's either (1) ignorance, or (2) them not wanting to pay super cheap CPC's for brand protection.
Hope that helps.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Running Google Ad Grants? How Much Is Your Monthly Spend?
Hi all - here's a question for everyone running Google Ads through the Ad Grant. How much of the $10,000 available to your account per month do you actually end up spending? I'm trying to see if I am in line with others in the industry. Would you mind sharing with me the type of nonprofit and the amount you're able to spend of the grant per month, on average? Thank you!
Paid Search Marketing | | newwhy0 -
Are there any recent studies of organic CTR vs. PPC CTR?
Pretty much the title. I am putting together a "game plan" for my CEO, where I would like to touch on the difference in CTR between SERP organic results and SERP PPC results. I've found a few blog posts that talks about PPC being responsible for 15% of all clicks, where 1-5 organic results are responsible for 68ish % and the rest being on 6-10 and page 2/3. However, I do not see any sources in these articles, which begs the question, where are these numbers taken from? Any suggestions? My own gut feeling (and SERP behaviour) tells me that these numbers might actually be super accurate, but since my business plan will most likely end up in the hands of our board of directors, I would very much like to back up my action points for growth, with actual sources. Thanks in advance.
Paid Search Marketing | | Nikolaj-Landrock1 -
Adding AdWords Remarketing Pixel to "Partner" Domains?
I have read through the AdWords advertising policies, but there isn't an extremely clear answer to my question: does it break AdWords policy to include a remarketing pixel on a partner website? Example - I own and run 123boats.com, my acquaintance who owns abchotels.com has agreed to put my remarketing pixel on his website, and I plan to show remarketing ads to his website visitors advertising my services at 123boats.com. Is anyone aware of any documentation that explicitly allows or disallows this type of "partner" remarketing tracking?
Paid Search Marketing | | marymerritt0 -
Is there way to have several AdWords Ad for the same keyphrase?
Hi guys. Can I have 2-3-4 ads come up for the same keyphrase? The situation is: I'm bidding for client's company name, there is no other competition (nobody else bids for client's company name), I'm bidding only for exact match and phrase match. Is there way to have, let's say 4 ads come up when somebody searches for exact matched company name? P.S. I know it's weird question, all this is done under reputation management for this company, I'm trying to occupy as much space at the top of the 1st SERPs, so people don't see ROR article in organic position #4. If you have other suggestions - please feel free to put it here. (SEO is being done, not-index pages are being optimized to try to come up as several organic results, backlink building is in process, Social media profiles are being optimized as well). I'm just trying to have some temporary "fix".
Paid Search Marketing | | DmitriiK0 -
How to improve good ppc campaign?
Hi guys, I'm managing PPC campaign for one of my client.
Paid Search Marketing | | EdmondHong87
Its locksmith campaign in the US, so you can imagine that the competition is very high. We are getting really good results. almost 50% conversion rate, all the keys are in average position of 1.5, the quality score is high (between 6-10),Search Lost IS, is really low. Everything split to group, zip code, cities, for mobile or desktop... basically everything is going really well. BUT as we always want to increased the results and like all if us we have the presser from the client to improve and get more results, i feel that im a bit stuck. What other stuff i can do to improve\extend the campaign ? Any tips are more then welcome!0 -
Bing Ads Quality Score
Hi Mozzers, We've just imported (around two weeks ago) our Adwords into Bing and are just evaluating it. Pretty much across the board, but especially our best performing Ad Groups are showing up with abysmal quality scores. Case in point: our best ad group has mostly 10s, two 9s and one 7 in Adwords, yet nothing over 3 in Bing. Specifically landing page relevance is rated poor, keyword relevance and landing page experience as "no problem". So, what specifically is Bing looking for on landing page relevance that's dramatically different to Adwords? The Bing help references a blog post of 2 years ago suggesting increasing keyword count - yet the pages do well in organic search and adding more keywords to the copy will start to look artificial and stuffed, so I'm very reluctant to start there! Any pointers?
Paid Search Marketing | | WorldText0 -
Does sitewide SEO affect PPC Quality Score?
When evaluating a PPC landing page for Quality Score, does Google evaluate the other pages that the landing page is linked to? For example, if we have a well optimized page on the site for "Widgets", can it outscore a well optimized PPC landing page that is isolated in a "disallow" directory with no links into or out of the page? I'm not sure if I am making myself clear...
Paid Search Marketing | | CsmBill0 -
Enhanced Campaigns: Can you disable the call extension from desktop/laptop ads and only show it for mobile ads?
I "upgraded" one of my campaigns to Enhanced Campaigns. Now my text ads appears with a phone number to the right of the Headline. Can I turn this off for desktop and laptops and only show our phone number / click to call button on mobile devices? That's how I had it set up before. Now it seems like Enhanced Campaigns is forcing the phone number in your text ads across all devices. Thanks.
Paid Search Marketing | | FSS0