PPC campaigns, if designed and managed correctly, can be highly effective and profitable.

Proper keyword selection is the cornerstone of any PPC campaign.

At E-Commerce Direct, clients often ask if it is a good idea to spend precious advertising dollars on Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns that include competitor names as well as their own company name.

It is a good question, and there are a lot of opinions on this topic. Some ‘PPC Advisors’ even go as far as citing ethical concerns about bidding on a competitor’s name and products.

At E-Commerce Direct, we take an analytical approach coupled with our own experiences to answer such questions.

Below you will find what our research and testing has revealed about bidding on your own company name and your competitor’s names using Google Ads and Amazon PPC campaigns.

PPC Company Name

Many clients say, ‘Why should I bid on my company name if I come up first under organic search?’  It’s a good question, but clients rarely know that over 70% of Google and Amazon users don’t know the difference between ‘Organic’ and ‘Paid’ search. Many search users believe what appears at the top of a search page is what Google or Amazon recommend as the best match to the search query.  However, you and your competitors know differently.

Let’s try something, Google your company name, do the same on Amazon if you are an Amazon Seller. Chances are you will find Ads above the original search result.

Research shows us there is a strong possibility your competitors are targeting your company name, but, even if they are not, Google and Amazon often match broad keywords with relevant company names to display ads above the original search, after all, they want to make money too!

A little known fact… targeting your company name as a ‘Phrase Match’ in your Google Ads Account, (‘Company name’) you will be able to see search queries surrounding your business e.g sale [company name], discount code [company name], [company name] returns, etc. This valuable data will give you a better understanding of the needs of your customers, helping you to adjust your sales, marketing and advertising accordingly.

Company named sponsored ads also help to take up more real estate on both Amazon and Google search pages. This will help ‘move down’ competing results, statistically raising the likelihood the search user will click on your ad or organic search result.

Finally, you will find more often than not cost-per-click (CPC) is typically inexpensive for a brand company named ads.

In conclusion, whether on Amazon or Google, we recommend using your company name in your PPC advertising campaigns.

PPC Competitor Names

Clients often compile a list of their competitors, add them as keywords to their Google or Amazon PPC campaigns, then sit back and wait, thinking they will ‘steal’ market share (customers) from those competitors.

However, our testing shows differently, thinking as a consumer, let’s say they type in a company name into a search engine (Google or Amazon). That tells us they most likely have a vested interest (brand loyalty) in that company. When they click on the first Ad (your Ad) and discover it’s not the desired result (company), they click the back button, and you find you’ve just wasted precious advertising dollars.

We did find that well created and planned PPC campaigns on Google can yield moderate sales success. These campaigns include well thought-out Ad headlines, competitor names in the destination URL and specifically designed landing pages with easy to understand product campaigns, a clearly defined unique selling propositions (USP) and strong call to actions.

In conclusion, we have found simply using competitors’ names in your PPC campaigns yield few results and wastes advertising pounds/dollars. If you are fortunate enough to have a well-known brand name and a good PPC agency at hand, we’ve found you can have moderate success with PPC competitor campaigns.

If you have questions about your PPC strategy or are looking for PPC support services, get in touch with our PPC advisors at E-Commerce Direct on: +44 (0) 2381 920 246, if you are based in the US, call toll-free: ++1 (888) 567-0464, email support@E-commerceDirect.com or via Live Chat on our website at www.E-commerceDirect.com. We look forward to hearing from you.