How PPC brand protection can increase clicks by 34%

If you have a brand worth protecting, competitors are already bidding on your brand name. Some bid directly on your name, while others will bid on obvious brand-plus derivatives, such as when GEICO bids on phrases like “Progressive insurance” (and vice versa).

As you can see for the keyword “geico insurance,” AIS, FreeQuotes365 and Mercury Insurance are aggressively buying that keyword, too.

If you have a trademark or brand name that drives search volume, it will be one of your more profitable campaigns. Unfortunately, it is one of the important PPC campaigns for your affiliates, resellers and competitors too.

Larry Kim, CTO of WordStream, discussed this topic in his article on how companies often make deals with each other to avoid bidding on each other’s terms. The article shows how a focus on protecting branded campaigns leads to less competition and lower costs.

I’m going to show you a process (with a case study) of how to protect your brand keywords, cut costs, and drive 34% more clicks.

While it’s a simple process to understand, it requires considerable skill to actually catch advertisers bidding on your brand, prove that it’s happening, and then deal with the brand bidders appropriately.

Your response to competitive brand bidding can take several forms, from fighting back with your own brand bidding, to getting the engines to remove the ad (if it breaks their rules), to legal action. More to come on these responses.

The goal of these actions is clear: prevent competing advertisers from bidding on your keywords and/or limit the number of affiliates and resellers who can buy these keywords. With fewer competitors, you’ll quickly see more clicks, lower CPCs, and lower overall campaign costs.

Search keywords without being logged into a Google account

When you are logged into any google property, your search results will be customized to your search history and behavior. It is best practice to evaluate these keywords anonymously, so don’t forget to logout before you check.

In the example below, you can see the manufacturer telling the consumers to buy the original product direct from the manufacturer.

The ad copy (“Buy the Original Product – From the Actual Manufacturer”) is a very smart approach to differentiate themselves from other people claiming to make this product.

Who has time to constantly monitor brand keywords?

Even if you are logged out and searching from different geo-locations, you will never catch all the violators by hand. I recommend using a 3rd-party tool that will automatically report these violators to the search engines.

There are several companies offering tools that help you monitor trademark and brands in PPC, as you can see when you search Google.