Is It Appropriate, Ethical or Effective to Bid On Competitors Business Names

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October 10th, 2007 by Nick

With the invent of Google Pay per Click advertising as a new source of marketing for most companies customers are given more choice from there homes than every before. With a few clicks of the mouse potential customers can find the product, compare the retailers and buy. This comparison of retailers or service providers has never been easier, and so never more competitive. Especially when retailers and service providers are selling exactly the same goods from exactly the same page and bidding on each others names.

Some advertisers would not recommend using other peoples names as keywords in Google, and believe that it is easier to have a hit for the purposes of future business than ride someone else’s coattails. This may also make your marketing efforts more worth while. You are more likely to attract traffic from users who are actually interested in you rather than anyone else. It also seems quite futile to bid on competitor’s names if you are already bidding on specific keywords in your campaign and so users who do not know the industry but know the product can find you through those means.

However competition is all about options and by not bidding on competitors names some may think that you are taking away the consumers right to choose even at the very last part of the buying process. By setting your stand up next to your competitor you are proving that you are just as good as they are, and maybe even offer a better product or a cheaper price to those who went straight for the well known brand name. Thus increasing your own brand awareness, on the internet if nowhere else, and making a name for you. But by placing yourself next to a well known competitor you will need to make sure that your web site is up to their standard and the products that you offer can compete as if the do not you can have a detrimental effect on your own brand equity.

The advertisers have to consider as well that the consumer is now used to having a lot of businesses to choose from when making their decisions and so if any rules or regulations were imposed on such competition in Google they would know about it, to have the monopoly on a certain product would only make your customers go elsewhere to search for a better deal.

It should also be noted that no one gets preferential treatment in these situations, everyone regardless of whether it is your business name or not has to bid. This could be considered unethical as someone with a higher budget than you could in theory be higher in the page rankings than you for your business name. This could be negated by the point that whoever is searching on your name is only looking for your business however potential customers may see a higher ad ranking and believe that what that company is offering is better, this is especially true for a first time purchase.

It is always preferable to have high levels of competition in any industry so offering the end user the option to choose who they buy with. By competing in this way it also makes the retailer aware of how hard they have to try to convince the potential customer that what they are selling has more to offer than the next best company, so making sure that the customer always gets the best deal.