Why do Companies Run Search Engine Ads on Their Own Brand?
One of the strange things that you will notice when you search for a brand like “Ford”, “Intel”, or “Applebees” is that they all run pay-per-click Ads on their own brands.
![Search for \"Ford\"](http://www.searchmarketingmaven.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/ppc_brand1.jpg "Search for \\"Ford\\"")
Even though they already rank #1 organically on their own brand, they run pay-per-click ads on their own brands.
Why?
Playing Defense
Even though people searching for the brand will most likely find the main site, this is largely a necessary defensive move. In the US & Canada, and now in the UK as well, Google allows your competitors to use your trademarked brands as keywords.
This means that your competitors can bid on your company name and products, and reach out to customers looking for you. In fact, it is now fairly common practice in search marketing to bid on the competitor’s company and product names (including misspellings). Therefore, it is an important defensive move for search marketers to bid on their own brands.
It’s Cheap
The good news is that bidding on your own brands (and misspellings) is very inexpensive for you because you will get a very high quality score in the PPC algorithm. This results in low bid costs.
Given the low costs, it also gives you another way of messaging to your customers without spending a lot of marketing dollars.
Protecting Your Trademark
While competitors can bid on your brand as keywords, they are not allowed to use your trademark in their ad text on Google. If you discover competitors doing this, you can file a complaint here with Google.
