Bidding on competitor keywords: the rules and the maths

You can bid on competitor keywords in Google Ads. Google's trademark policy says plainly that it will not restrict trademarks used as keywords. What it will restrict, once the trademark owner complains, is a direct competitor using the trademark in the ad itself.

So the rules are simple. Whether bidding on a rival's name is worth doing is a question of maths, and the maths is usually less kind than the idea. This guide covers both directions: conquesting a competitor's brand, and what to do when one is bidding on yours.

What Google's trademark policy says about competitor keywords

Everything below comes from Google's Trademarks policy, read on 4 October 2026. It applies to Google Ads and Display & Video 360.

Four details matter in practice.

The trademark has to be in the ad. A rival's name on your landing page alone is not grounds for a Google restriction.

Complaints are narrow. Google only accepts complaints against specific advertisers, identified by their URLs, in the countries and industries where the owner has shown trademark rights.

Restrictions stick. Once Google restricts a trademark for an advertiser, it generally applies on an ongoing basis to any ads using the same second-level domain in their final URL.

Suspension comes with notice. Google says it will give at least seven days' warning before suspending an account under this policy.

This is ad policy, not law. Trademark law varies by country, and courts can see things differently from Google's ad review. Microsoft Advertising has its own trademark policy, so check it separately if you run Bing ads. Lawyers have one more layer: state bars disagree on whether bidding on a rival lawyer's name is allowed, as our law firm competitor analysis explains.

Is bidding on competitor keywords worth it?

The maths

Google's Quality Score has three components: expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance and landing page experience. Google describes it as a diagnostic tool rather than an input to the auction, but the same factors explain why conquesting is expensive.

Expected clickthrough rate is low. Most people who search a brand name want that brand. Your ad is the one they skip.

Ad relevance is low. You cannot use their name in your ad, so your ad does not match the search as well as theirs does.

Landing page experience is weaker. Your page is about you, not about the thing they searched for.

Expect to pay more per click and convert fewer of those clicks than on your own keywords. A hypothetical example:

Your numbers will differ. The shape usually does not. Run a test with a fixed budget and judge it on cost per lead, never on clicks.

When conquesting can pay

The rival has just given people a reason to leave. A price rise, a removed plan, a shutdown of a product line. Searches for their name go up and some of those searchers are shopping. Watching their pricing page tells you when this happens.

You bid on comparison searches, not the bare name. "[Rival] alternative", "[rival] pricing" and "[rival] vs" are typed by people who are already comparing. Those are worth far more than the brand name alone, which often comes from existing customers looking for the login page.

You have a genuine difference to put in the ad. "No setup fee. Cancel any month." beats any clever reference to the competitor you are not allowed to name.

You have a comparison page that is honest. People who click a conquest ad want to know how you differ. A fair comparison page converts them; a hatchet job loses them.

When it rarely pays

When your offer is close to identical, when their brand searches are mostly existing customers, and when you have a brand name of your own that they could start bidding on in return. Conquesting is easy to start and hard to stop once both sides are doing it.

How to run a conquest campaign properly

1. Give it its own campaign and budget, so it cannot starve your core campaigns and its results stay separate.
2. Use exact and phrase match on the rival's name plus comparison words. Broad match on a brand name spends money in odd places.
3. Keep their trademark out of your ad text. Write about what you do differently.
4. Send clicks to a comparison page, not your homepage.
5. Set a test period and a target cost per lead before you start. Four weeks is a reasonable test for most budgets.
6. Add the rival's name as a negative keyword in your other campaigns, so their searches only land in the conquest campaign.

For the wider research behind this, finding which rivals bid on what and reading their ads, see PPC competitor analysis.

When a competitor bids on your brand name

1. Confirm it

Use the Ad preview and diagnosis tool. It is under Tools, then Troubleshooting, in Google Ads. It shows the live results for a search without adding impressions to your account, which is better than searching yourself.

Check auction insights on your brand campaign. Any domain that appears there is showing ads in your brand auctions, whether it bids on your name directly or matches it through broader keywords. Its overlap rate tells you how often. How to read auction insights explains each column.

Read their ad in the Google Ads Transparency Center. Search their domain, set your country and look at their text ads.

2. Defend with your own brand campaign

Your ads on your own name start with every advantage the conquester lacks: people searching your name expect you, and your ad and landing page match the search. A brand campaign keeps your ad at the top, above theirs. If you do not run one, their ad can sit above your own organic listing on searches for your name.

3. Check whether they use your trademark in the ad

If they only bid on your name as a keyword, Google will not act. If your trademark appears in their ad text and you hold trademark rights in that country, you can file a complaint through Google's Report Content on Google form. Identify their URL, show your rights, and expect Google to review it against the criteria above.

4. Think before you call them

Some competitors agree informally not to bid on each other's names. Agreements between competitors about how they advertise can raise competition law questions, so take legal advice before you sign anything.

5. Do not overreact

A rival appearing in a small share of your brand auctions is probably paying more per lead than you are, for the reasons in the maths above. Make sure your brand campaign is solid, then let them pay for it.

What Figo does here

Ours, so judge accordingly. Figo reads the Google Ads Transparency Center for each competitor once a week and emails you when they start new ads, with the copy and the landing page. A conquest campaign usually shows up as new text ads pointing at a comparison page, so you see it the week it launches. Figo does not show which keywords trigger those ads; auction insights on your brand campaign is still how you confirm they are bidding on your name. Plans start at $49 a month for three competitors.