Finding a competitor in position 1 for your brand terms can be frustrating. If this happens to you, here is what you can do.
Many advertisers consider bidding on competitor terms an easy win, especially if they are unmarked and the truth is, it can be. It is after all your most valuable search engine traffic[1], consisting of mostly new or existing customers.
Whether rightly or wrongly, Google (and other search engines) allows competitors to bid on each other’s brand terms. This means technically your competitors could keep it up forever, and if left unresponded to, they will end up taking a significant share of your valuable traffic.
So if you find yourself on the receiving end of competitor bidding, what can you do?
The good news is there are several things, and once done, you may find your competitors take down their ads, or alternatively you make it less attractive for them to continue.
Here’s what to do, in a suggested order of action:
1. Beat them on your own brand terms
If you have not started bidding on your own brand terms already, this is your reason to start, and not only on Google -check Bing too. Take back control of what your potential customers see when they search for your brand, wherever they search.
Beating competitors on home ground won’t be a problem. You should be able to instantly claim position 1 on your brand terms, and achieve a quality score of nine or 10.
As a result your cost-per-click will be lower than your competitors, usually very cheap, and by being in the auction, their CPCs will in turn increase significantly.
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