The term “bidding” refers to making an offer or proposal in general terms, often involving the idea of buying an item or a service.
But, if you’re wondering how it’s related in any way to branding & SEO (if you’re here, you might be looking for cool marketing tips & Google advertising strategies!), let us tell you, it’s just similar to the concept of general “bidding”, but with a slight difference in approach.
Hello, everyone!
Welcome to today’s blog, where you’ll be learning about brand bidding competitors & how it can help you win your paid advertising game much faster.
Why We Handle Brand Bidding Better…
But, before we start, let us tell you we’ve been running paid ad campaigns for global industries for more than 7 years now. From real estate to healthcare, we have made 750+ brands across the world build their own identity in the competitive digital landscape.
Our PPC lead is a specialized B2B & SaaS marketing expert & has more than 10+ years of experience in helping brands dominate the high-performance marketing space.
All the things that you’ll learn here are shared by our paid ad & marketing experts and are solely based on their personal experiences. So, stay hooked till the end to learn how to bid on your competitors’ brand terms.
…But, What’s Brand Bidding Competitors?
To put it in a simple way, brand bidding competitors is a paid search strategy that helps your brand website appear right in front of your competitors’ audience, even when they are searching for your competitors’ brands on the web.
For example, you’re searching for Nike shoes on Google. Now, if Adidas bids on Nike’s key terms such as “Nike shoes for ultimate comfort”, the Search Engine Results will also show you shoes from Adidas.
Brand Bidding for Successful Paid Ad Campaigns…
The process of brand bidding involves purchasing selective keywords mentioning a specific brand name in paid search auctions.
A company may bid on its own brand names & that’s known as self-bidding. It helps the brand protect itself & prevent the competitors from stealing their loyal customers/leads.
But, brand bidding competitors is the practice of bidding on a rival’s brand name to capture the attention of the users searching for your competitors’ services.
But Why Brand Terms Matter So Much in Paid Search?
It’s because the brand terms with high volume indicate high search navigational (when users look for a specific brand), as well as commercial (when the users are ready to buy from the brand they’re searching for) intent.
Brand bidding competitors will prove to be highly beneficial for your own branding, especially when the brand terms containing the name of your competitors have high search volume.
When you bid on search brand terms, you get:
👉High-intent traffic
👉High conversions
👉Market share at the decision stage
👉Enhanced brand visibility
👉Improved brand awareness
👉Competitive Edge
👉More organic impressions with a lower CPC (because of the highest Quality Score for the keyword)
Brand Bidding Competitors Help You Dominate The SERPs
The concept alone has changed the perception of digital advertisers. Now, it has emerged to be a core part of Google paid ads & when done correctly, it has shown great results for brands, once competing for mere visibility on Google.
✔️It diverts your rivals’ potential customers to your site
✔️Helps you capture new customers in the market
But…Focus on The Search Intent
Did you know bidding on competitors’ brand terms, even with low search volume, has a high conversion rate? As long as your brand terms are specific, they’re likely to convert more.
The specific brand searches show that the high-intent audiences are past the initial research, and when you bid on specific competitors’ brand terms, you’re basically targeting the most valuable prospects, improving your chances to generate more ROIs.
So, Is It Safe?
Though some branding and Google ad specialists view brand bidding competitors “unethical” & consider this strategy a high-risk one (due to the potential of bidding war & legal disputes), when used correctly, it can take your paid brand advertising to a whole new level.
Now that you have at least the initial idea of what competitor brand bidding is all about, let’s learn about the 4 different types of competitors to target for brand bidding.
4 Types of Brand Bidding Competitors
Direct Rivals ➡️Brands that sell similar products/services (e.g., Adidas Vs Nike)
Indirect Rivals ➡️Brands that offer different solutions to audiences with similar intent (e.g., running apps vs. gym)
Affiliates/Partners ➡️Affiliate brand with whom you work
Third-Party Resellers ➡️ Manufacturing brands (but works mostly when you are an online retailer)
But before you start brand bidding competitors aggressively, be mindful of a few considerations.
Competitor Brand Bidding Involves Severe Risks (when done wrong)
✅Increased advertising costs (due to bidding wars)
✅Significantly poor CTR
✅Negative brand perception
✅Serious legal & trademark issues
✅Limited long-term benefits
✅Low conversions on mobile searches
Now it might get a little bit confusing for you!
…because brand bidding competitors involve both rewards and risks.
So, why not have a look at the side-by-side comparisons of the pros and cons?
So, if you consider both the advantages & the drawbacks, brand bidding competitors are worth your efforts. Only when you manage it the wrong way, you put your paid advertising campaigns at risk.
…but if you follow our guide, you’ll be walking only on the right track.
The Legal & Policy Considerations to Abide by
Here, we’ve explained all the restrictions & permissible activities related to Google Ads trademark & jurisdictional policies, legal risks, & more in the easiest way possible.
Considerations Involving Google’s Ad Trademark Policies
Policies Involving Competitors’ Brand Terms
Google permits brand advertisers like you to bid on competitors’ trademarked terms (like keywords) to trigger ads.
However, using them directly in the ad copies might lead to confusion among the audience, and even the trademark owner might bring charges of infringement against your brand.
Also, Google’s initial review focuses on the ad copy as well as the landing page. So, make sure they comply with non-infringement policies so that your brand advertising strategies do not get exposed to legal risks.
Jurisdictional Differences in The US, EU, India & Other Countries
Ad platform policies in the US and EU generally follow local trademark laws. But the actual enforcement of these ad policies relies largely on the trademark owners themselves filing a complaint, especially in India.
It is because the judiciary bodies and courts often find it challenging to determine whether using a branded keyword for paid online advertising/branding is actually “infringing” on the owners’ rights or not.
So, When Exactly Should You Go for Brand Bidding Competitors?
Let’s make it super-short & crisp…
👉When you’re new to the market
👉You desperately want to get hold of market share
👉You want to counter your business competitors
👉You want to capture high-intent users
👉To serve a suddenly-unaddressed customer base when a competitor exists
👉When you offer superior services at a better price
But there are times when you should not opt for brand bidding competitors.
When to Avoid Competitor Brand Bidding?
👉You have nothing better to offer
👉Your ads are irrelevant
👉If you can’t afford a bidding war
👉You have a limited budget
👉You belong to a highly litigious industry
👉Your landing page is not optimized/poorly designed
So, bid on your competitor's brand terms only when you’re sure about your brand’s USPs, you’ve a better solution for the high-intent users, you’ve dedicated landing pages, & you’re ready to defend your own brand terms.
Ask yourself these 3 questions, and if you get a “yes” in your answer, let’s focus on how to strategically prepare a framework for effective brand bidding competitors.
Here’s How to Run Competitor Brand Bidding Strategically
✔️Separate brand bidding competitor campaigns
✔️Target brand terms used by direct competitors
✔️Focus on short to mid tail competitor brand terms
✔️Make sure you have a sufficient budget
✔️Use a Max CPC limit to control bidding costs
✔️Avoid Target Impression Share for competitors
✔️Research about competitors’ bidding gaps (Reddit, niche forums, review/rating sites)
✔️Create value-added ad copies highlighting what makes your brand unique
✔️Avoid trademark infringement in your ad copies
✔️Highlight your service/product advantages in your landing page
✔️Create dedicated competitor comparison landing pages
✔️Consider alternative positioning using Maximixe Conversions
✔️Focus on Quality Score for better placement
✔️Be mindful of your budget and bid caps (no harm in starting small)
✔️Monitoring Quality Score, CPA, & CPCs
✔️Optimize your ad copies & landing page regularly
✔️Stay alert to your competitors’ reactions
So, you’re almost sorted with the steps of strategic brand bidding competitors.
But the real question is, what if your business competitors start bidding on your brand terms?
You must defend your brand then to prevent an ad cost spike & prevent a long-term bidding war.
Here’s How to Defend Your Brand from Competitor Bidding
👉Start bidding on your own brand term
👉Regularly track your competitors’ activities
👉Optimize your ad copies & landing page accordingly
👉File a Trademark Complaint against your competitors (if necessary)
👉Abide by organic brand protection protocols
Here are The Most Powerful Brand Defense Practices
✅Focus on ultimate SERP domination
✅Focus on building brand trust
✅Increase Quality Score on brand terms
✅Use extensions strategically
✅Monitor competitor ads
✅Adjust your bidding strategies accordingly
Also, Keep Your Campaign Performance under Check
To make sure that your brand bidding competitors strategies are effective, track these crucial KPIs regularly.
➡️ROIs
➡️CTR
➡️CPC
➡️CVR
➡️Incremental lift
➡️Brand lift
➡️Direct responses
Also, make sure you effectively address attribution challenges to identify your best marketing efforts leading to conversions & rigorously A/Btest your brand bidding competitors frameworks.
So, is that all?
Well, no!
Did you know?
Even a small mistake in competitor brand bidding can cost you a compromised brand image forever.
Here Are The Common Mistakes Advertisers Often Make…
❌Copying competitor messaging
❌Overbidding emotionally
❌Ignoring legal boundaries
❌Sending traffic to generic pages
❌Failing to track incrementality
❌Bidding on the wrong competitor brand terms
❌Aggressive bidding on mobile
❌Bidding on Irrelevant Competitors’ brand terms
❌Not tracking campaign performance at the right time
❌Ignoring defensive bidding strategies
Now you must be thinking about how to track the KPIs or campaign performance manually, right?
Well, that too has a solution.
Listing Down The Tools for Monitoring Competitor Brand Bids
☑️Google Ads’ built-in Auction Insights reports
☑️Google Ads Transparency Center
☑️Third-party PPC tools (SEMRush, SpyFu, iSpionage)
What Else Can You Do?
Apart from all these, a simple manual review of the SERPs after performing searches for your own branded terms can help you figure out a practical scenario.
Not only will you get an idea of how effective your brand bidding competitors strategies are, but also, you’ll get to know if any of your business rivals are bidding on your brand terms or not!
So, make sure you set up a weekly review schedule to track Auction Insights reports & manual checks. It’ll help you track the long-term bidding trends & ensure that you don’t miss out on any of your competitors’ activities.
Seems pretty doable, no?
But keep in mind that brand bidding competitors trends are rapidly shifting. The evolution of AI results in massive strategic shifts among advertisers, potentially increasing ad spends.
So, to catch up faster with the trends, you need to get a better insight into the competitive paid marketing landscape.
Future of Brand Bidding Competitors: Trends & Shifts
Due to the increased industry competition and ever-expanding advertising landscape, the cost of paid search clicks will rise immensely, requiring refined targeting & optimized Quality Score for lowering the CPCs and improving ad positioning & ROAS.
So, you would have to focus more on personalizing your ad copies and AI-powered A/B testing for outpacing manual performance tracking efforts.
Automation is The Key Driving Force behind Trend Shifts…
You would find an increased use of automated monitoring tools to accurately identify unauthorized use of trademarked brand terms of competitors.
Also, Google is constantly refining its trademark complaint policies & enforcement framework to impose a severe restriction on the practice of using competitors' trademarked terms in ad copies without permission.
So, What Does The Future Hold?
Since the anticipated shift in brand bidding competitors trends is primarily toward SERP domination, advertisers will have to be more integrated in their approach.
The future paid branding strategists would prioritize multi-format presence over a single advertising approach and combine everything (paid ads, local map packs, organic listings, rich snippets) & adopt a combined approach of organic as well as paid advertising.
This way, they will not be relying on a single branding strategy and will have a better chance to occupy the virtual space as much as possible.
Brand Bidding Competitors is Tricky…
To get the best outcomes of your competitors’ brand bidding strategies, you need to be unapologetically strategic, and there’s no other way around!
You need to know how to bid on specific high-intent competitors’ brand terms, besides defending your own brand against other business rivals bidding on your brand terms.
Remember, It’s A Choice, Not A Tactic!
The strategy might help you capture high-intent traffic when done the right way, but it’s not a quick fix or a proven tactic to get a competitive edge or ward off your industry rivals from stealing your leads.
If You Want Results, Play It Well…
If you plan to opt for brand bidding competitors, make sure you highlight your brand's USPs in your ad copy first. They should be legally compliant and must abide by Google’s Trademark Policies.
Though your immediate goal is to drive high-intent traffic to your site, it’s better to modify your bidding strategies according to the industry patterns so that you can equally safeguard your brand, prevent a bidding war, & ensure long-term brand values, significantly reducing your CPA.
So, focus on long-term brand equity instead of short-term wins for better ROIs.
That’s it for today.
Hope you enjoyed reading the blog.
See you in the next one!
