If you are investing your time and resources to develop a recognizable brand, it is important to protect it from unfair practices in paid search. Trademark violations occur when other advertisers use your brand name or slogans to divert traffic and profit from your reputation. By implementing the strategies below, you’ll be one step closer to preventing trademark misuse and ensuring your business stands out ethically in paid search results.
Let’s explore seven steps to protect your brand, boost your click-through rates, and reduce overall costs related to PPC campaigns. These steps include a robust trademark monitor, proactive digital trademark monitoring, and consistent detection of any trademark violations.
1. Make Sure Your Trademark Is Strong
A key component of preventing trademark abuse is having a well-defined, legally defensible trademark. If your brand name or slogan is too generic or descriptive, it’s harder to enforce it in search engines. A strong mark:
• Stands out distinctly from everyday language
• Is registered and recognized, reinforcing your position if trademarks in ad text are wrongfully used by competitors
• Lays the foundation for a reliable trademark monitoring service that can protect you in the event of disputes
2. Maintain a Leading Position in Paid and Organic Results
Your brand terms, whether exact matches, misspellings, or brand-and-product combinations, must be visible at the top of the search results. Covering both PPC ads and organic listings helps you:
• Capture maximum traffic from users who specifically look for your brand
• Establish a strong presence, thus discouraging competitors from aggressively targeting your keywords
• Strengthen your online brand monitoring efforts, which makes tracking trademark infringement far easier when you consistently appear in top positions
By bidding on your own trademark keywords, especially in Google Ads, you reduce the chance of competitors siphoning off your traffic. Remember to secure brand variations and common domain typos, too.
3. Use Convincing Ad Copy to Capture Clicks
Competitors who show up on your brand terms aim to capitalize on your reputation. They often use trademarks in PPC or borderline language to hijack your clicks. To fight back:
• Write compelling ad copy highlighting benefits, discounts, or unique selling points
• Include calls to action that resonate strongly with your audience
• Report violators immediately if you discover ad text that infringe upon your rights
Consistent and rigorous trademark monitor checks will reveal any unauthorized usage of your trademark in their PPC campaigns. You can then monitor trademark violations with a specialized trademark monitoring service and escalate them to the search engines.
4. Keep an Eye on Ad Frequency
When running PPC campaigns on your brand keywords, aim for nearly 100% ad serving frequency, if your budget allows. If your ads appear only part of the time, you leave open spots for competitors, increasing the risk of:
• Higher CPCs if competitors run ads on your brand when you’re absent
• Lost clicks from customers specifically looking for your business
A steady approach to digital trademark monitoring, like checking how often you appear and how often others bid on your brand, will help you maintain optimal coverage.
5. Supervise Affiliate Activities
Affiliate partners can be both an asset and a threat if they violate your trademark ads policies in Google, Yahoo or other search engines. Some affiliates might directly link to your site using your trademarked terms without aligning to your guidelines. Make sure you:
1. Clearly define which brand terms affiliates can use
2. Restrict direct linking or using your protected phrases in ad copies without permission
3. Use a trademark monitoring service to stay updated on any potential affiliate violations across affiliate channels
By tracking trademark infringement among affiliates, you can swiftly identify suspicious activity, contact the offending partner, and terminate or correct the behavior.
6. Collaborate with Trusted Affiliates
Working with trustworthy affiliates on your brand terms can be a strategic way to reduce costs and gain more visibility. The key is to set guidelines:
• Decide how high affiliates can bid on your brand terms as some companies require affiliates to stay below a certain ad rank
• Provide pre-approved ad copy if affiliates are allowed to use trademarks in PPC campaigns
• Encourage affiliates to focus on complementary messaging rather than conflicting with your primary campaigns
If executed well, this strategy can help you occupy more real estate on the search results page, boosting conversions while maintaining brand integrity.
7. Leverage Specialized Landing Pages
Creating unique landing pages or micro-sites for promotions allows you to secure broader coverage on brand-related searches. By building PPC campaigns around these specialized pages, you can:
• Segment user traffic based on promotions or target markets
• Optimize your promotional URLs to rank organically, reinforcing your brand presence
• Avoid direct conflict with your main domain’s brand messaging
This approach also complements a robust digital trademark monitoring system, ensuring that all brand-related pages are protected
A powerful mix of trademark protection tools, consistent oversight, and proactive actions towards affiliates can noticeably reduce trademark violations. These seven strategies may help you creating a solid defense that protects your bottom line, lowers CPCs, and strengthening your brand’s reputation. The more you practice these steps, the more intuitive they become, allowing you to swiftly counter any attempts at infringing on your trademarks.
How to Track TM Violations with Bluepear (Example: Wargaming)
If you need a comprehensive and user-friendly trademark monitoring service to monitor trademark violations, Bluepear provides a robust platform for tracking trademark infringement. Whether you’re protecting a leading brand like Wargaming or a growing business:
Centralized Evidence Collection: Bluepear automatically captures trademarks in ad copies, screenshots of landing pages, search engine results, and even redirect links. This makes brand violation detection straightforward and saves you time when building a case against infringers.
Affiliate ID Tracking: The system also logs affiliate IDs so you can instantly identify responsible parties. If someone misuses your brand, you can send them a direct violation report right from the Bluepear dashboard.
Convenient Reporting: All data is consolidated in one place, allowing you to swiftly take action and keep a record of each incident for legal or internal review.
With Bluepear’s help, safeguarding your brand identity becomes significantly easier. This all-in-one approach to digital trademark monitoring gives you peace of mind while you focus on growing your business. Protect your brand, stay vigilant, and leverage these tips to ensure competitors don’t profit unfairly from your hard-earned reputation.
