Let's Build a Competitor Conquest Campaign! (Episode 530)

The title of this episode is a trap. Chris Schaefer, a 23-year veteran of Google Ads, opens by promising to build a conquest campaign, then immediately admits he misled you. His real goal is to explain why you should not build one. He defines a conquest campaign—also called a competitor campaign—as bidding on a competitor’s brand name or trademarked product to offer searchers a compelling alternative. It sounds like a clever strategy, but Schaefer argues it is almost always a waste of money, a source of legal risk, and a distraction from better uses of ad spend.

What a conquest campaign is (and isn’t)

A conquest campaign targets keywords that are not your own. If your company makes custom fountain pens, you might add “Joe’s Pens” as a keyword. The goal is to intercept searchers looking for that competitor and convince them to switch. Google allows this—there is no policy against bidding on a competitor’s name. But there are limits. You cannot put a trademarked competitor name in your ad copy. If the competitor has registered their trademark with Google, your ad will be disapproved. Even if they haven’t, using their name in your copy invites two outcomes: a cease-and-desist letter or retaliation. Retaliation is especially dangerous if the competitor is larger. A marketing team can spin up a campaign targeting your brand with a $10,000 budget, and your modest spend will not