PPC Ads as a Reputation Management Issue
Wednesday, July 9, 2008Hypothetically: What happens when a competitor uses your business or brand name as bidded keyword targets in Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing or Microsoft’s adCenter paid search advertising programs?
There are a number of answers to that question some of which are totally obvious, others somewhat more subtle, and some about as subtle as a sledgehammer. It depends on how your competitor is using your business or brand name in their advertising and what you choose to do to counter their actions. No matter what the outcome, anyone else’s use of your name is a very real reputation management concern.
At the very least, if a competitor bids on your name or brand, when your business or brand name is typed into the search query box at one of the major search engines, your competitor’s advertising will be displayed beside the free or organic search results. That means even if your website is in the #1 spot, your competitor’s advertisement enjoys almost as much prominence. That’s not necessarily a business threatening occurrence and there is little preventing you using the same tactic against your competition.
