The one known as brand bidding It is a widely used resource in advertising based on Google Adwords and especially in Google Adwords. It consists of using the brands of your competitors as keywords in your Adwords ads.
That is to say, if I want to advertise BMW brand cars, for example, I include among the keywords of my ad words such as “Mercedes”, “Audi” or “Volkswagen”, so that Google users who carry out searches using these words see my BMW ads appear in your search results.
The brand bidding It has been allowed by Google since 2008, as long as the competing brand does not appear in the ad text. That is, we can only use brand bidding for which we are going to bid for our ad to appear. You already know that Adwords (and many other online advertising systems) work under the auction principle: the more demanded a keyword is, the higher the cost per click that you will be charged.
Therefore, bidding on a brand like this will raise its price. Among specialists in online advertising there is a difference of opinion about brand bidding: it seems legitimate to some and counterproductive to others. I count myself among the last, but I will try to present the arguments for and against before saying why I think so.
Arguments in favor of brand bidding
1. is legit trying to steal customers from my competition. That’s what companies live on.
two. I am not forcing the google user to anything. I simply show you an alternative when you search for a product from my competitors.
3. The competition also use brand bidding with my brand.
4. When bidding on my competitor’s brand, I increase the price of what you have to pay for your brand as a keyword. That is to say, I screwed him up a lot.
5. If I sell in my store products of different brandsI have to be able to promote them with those brands.
Arguments against brand bidding
1. I am “stealing” traffic from my competitor. I divert traffic to my website that legitimately corresponds to it.
2. My competitor is not stupid. It will detect it and do the same with me. In the end, we will both have to pay higher costs for clicks and the last beneficiary of brand bidding will be Google.
3. Google does not require or control who uses brand bidding nor if it is a real competitor or not. Finding advertising for penis extenders in a search for a brand of underwear hurts the image of that brand.
4. Networks and marketplaces use brand bidding extensively. Namely, they ‘steal traffic’ that should correspond to my brand’s website because that’s what I work for, inserting ads that use my brand as a keyword so that people buy through them and not from my online store.
5. The use of brand bidding against my brand forces me to fight back bidding on my own brand as a keyword for my ads, forcing me to pay for traffic that should come for free. Who wins? Google.
Other brand bidding strategies
Brand bidding is not only used in Adwords. Also in the , especially on Twitter. Using popular hashtags or trending topics to promote a product is a common practice. Befitting of a publicist who has a screw-fitted beret and a single eyebrow, but common. I’ve seen things on Twitter like using the hashtag #now we can to sell rugs.
Without being so blatantly animal, there are more subtle uses. Let’s see: if you have an ophthalmology clinic and today is World Blindness Prevention Day, it is logical that you use the corresponding hashtag to ask people to go get checked. But we will talk at length about hashtags on Twitter in another post.
So do I use brand bidding or not?
Depends. The most ethical thing is that you do not use it and that traffic reaches your website on your own merits and not because you take advantage of your competitor’s marketing efforts. In addition, if it is stronger than you and detects you, it will counterattack with more resources than you can afford, which will take you out of the market without breaking a sweat.
If you are going to use brand bidding, make sure your competitor is your size. If you use it against someone much smaller than you, you could even incur a case of unfair competition or abuse of dominant position. And if you use it against a well-known brand, you could be sued. Eye. The legal regulations on this subject are confusing, different in each country and can give you more than one scare. Your ad must not only not contain the brand you are bidding on in the text, but it must also make it clear that you are a different brand or company.
In certain circumstances, such as marketplaces or multi-brand stores, it is allowed (and it is logical and legitimate to do so) for the brand to appear in the title of the advertisement, but the text must specify the name of the company that sells that product. Here is an example of what happens when you type “scholl” (anatomical shoe brand) into Google:
This is a case of legitimate use of brand bidding. Amazon and Promofarma do sell Scholl brand products and therefore can be promoted using that brand, but note that only in the title, not in the body of the ad, and in both cases make it clear that these are companies other than Scholl itself.
If you are going to participate in one or use it for your advertising, make sure what their policy is in this regard, or you can take more than one surprise. It all depends on your goals. Whether you are or not, it will matter to you that certain online outlets promote your products very cheaply, because that is not the customer target you are looking for for your online store. But if you are small, the marketplace in question may have more financial resources than you to dedicate to marketing.
Are you really interested in having to pay for targeted traffic to your own brand? That is something that only an analysis of the economic results of your stay in a marketplace can tell you. Most likely yes, but It all depends on whether the sales you get through the marketplace compensate for the increase in the CPC of the keyword with your brand.
Using brand bidding to bid on your own brand and thus ensure that the first ads that appear on Google lead to your website can be a successful strategy (all big brands use it, you can easily check it), but only if you have many resources. . By doing so, you attract the competition to do the same, and you will see how the CPC of the keyword with your brand goes up like foam.
You have to do numbers and see if it pays you financially to pay for those clicks that you can get, what impact they have on the total number of visits and what they generate for you. Like all online marketing strategies, and especially in one as ‘delicate’ as this one, good monitoring and interpretation of data is key to achieving results.
Summarizing: Nothing prevents you from using brand bidding, if you comply with the legal limitations for it. It all depends on the circumstances and whether or not your competitors have declared ‘war’ on you. Sometimes starting yourself with brand bidding on your own brand or on that of others is to start a war in which you probably do not have much to gain.
It’s up to you.
Have you been wanting more? Ruben Cane gives you more details about Brand Bidding in this video:
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