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Should I bid on my own brand name in Google Ads?

If competitors show up when people search your name, bidding on your own brand is usually the cheapest way to keep those customers. But it isn't automatic: in some cases you're paying for clicks you'd have got for free. Here's how to decide, and how to test it.

The short answer

Yes, if anyone else advertises on your name. If competitors, affiliates or lead resellers show ads when people search for you, your own ad is the best defence: it takes the top spot, usually costs very little, and pushes the others down. Maybe not, if nobody else does, your website ranks first, and the search results page has nothing else competing for attention. Then the clicks may mostly be ones you'd get for free, and the only way to know is to test.

Not sure whether anyone bids on your name? Run the free check at the bottom of this page from a few cities, or read how to find who is bidding on your brand.

Why brand campaigns usually pay off

• They're cheap. Your ad is the most relevant answer to a search for your own name, so it tends to earn a high Quality Score. In Google's auction that lowers what you pay per click, often far below your other keywords.
• You take the top position. Ads sit above the organic results. Without your own ad, a competitor's can be the first thing customers see when they search for you.
• Competitors pay more. When you bid on your name, anyone else bidding on it has to outbid a very relevant advertiser, so their clicks get more expensive and their ads drop lower.
• You control the message. Ads let you show current offers, your phone number, sitelinks to login, pricing or locations, and change them instantly.
• You cover the variations. Customers search "brand phone number", "brand login", "brand reviews" and misspellings. Those are exactly where bidders tend to hide.

When you might not need one

Some of your brand ad clicks would have clicked your organic listing anyway. That's fine when competitors are present (you're paying to keep customers), but wasteful when they're not. You might reasonably skip or reduce brand ads when:

• no other advertiser shows on your brand searches, across cities, devices and times of day;
• your website is the first organic result and takes up most of the screen with sitelinks;
• your brand budget would do clearly more on non-brand searches.

Even then, keep watching. When a competitor or affiliate starts bidding, you'll want to switch your brand campaign back on fast.

How to test it properly

Don't judge by the brand campaign's own conversions; many of those would have come through organic search anyway. Measure the total (paid plus organic) instead:

1. Record a baseline: total brand clicks, conversions and revenue from paid and organic together, for a few weeks.
2. Pause or reduce the brand campaign for a fixed period, ideally in some regions only (a geographic split), so seasonality doesn't fool you.
3. Watch competitor activity during the test: if others start showing on your name, that's part of the answer.
4. Compare totals. If total conversions drop by more than the brand campaign cost, keep it. If they barely move and nobody else bids, you can spend less.

How to set one up

• Separate campaign for brand keywords, with its own budget, so brand clicks don't mix with non-brand results.
• Exact and phrase match on your brand, its common add-ons and misspellings. Add your brand as a negative keyword in your non-brand campaigns.
• Use every asset: sitelinks, call assets, structured snippets. A big ad leaves less room for others.
• Cover mobile. Many competitors target mobile, where people tap to call.
• Pair it with monitoring. Your campaign tells you about your own ads, not who else is there. Auction Insights shows competing domains, but not their ad text.

StopBrandBidding.com shows who else advertises on your name, from the US cities and devices you choose, several times a day, with dated screenshots, so you know when a brand campaign is earning its keep. If someone uses your name in their ad, see how to stop competitors bidding on your brand.

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