Microsoft announced recently a change to their trademark policy – they will no longer investigate complaints related to trademark keywords.
This change means now Microsoft adCenter are moving closer to being more in line with Google AdWords – as you may know Google has been allowing bidding on trademark terms for a while!
So what does this change mean? Well, great if you’ve got a big player in your market who you want a slice of – not so great if you are that big player!
One big thing here to note is that the trademark policy change applies to keywords you are bidding on, not the ad text you write. So you can for example bid on ‘Brand X’ as a keyword, but then cannot write “We Are Better than Brand X” or something similar in your ad copy – that is still breaking trademark policy.
Things to consider…
There are some key points within the trademark terms for both AdWords and adCenter which should be considered – some match, some don’t so be aware when importing and transferring campaigns:
As with all topics concerning Trademarks this is still very much a grey area as to whether you should or shouldn’t bid on competitors trademarks. What we are covering in this post is merely the change in trademark policy from Microsoft – the debate will continue within our industry for many years!
A recent case which took place in California may make you rethink your strategy: Binder v. Disability Group
Some really good pointers here, thanks Anna. Something I would like to add and make sure people are aware of is the damage that bidding on brand terms can do to your PPC Account. The Quality Score is obviously going to be low as you are not ‘Brand X’ so you need to weigh up the benefits of gaining some extra, relatively ‘cheap’ traffic over the lifetime performance of your PPC campaigns.
I have seen brand bidding work in some industries but failed in others so my recommendations would be:
– Create a new campaign for brand bidding terms
– Watch it like a hawk and don’t be afraid to switch it off if it is not working
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