PROFIT THROUGH PERFORMANCE ™

SearchAdNetwork’s trademark protection services ensure that other companies aren’t capitalizing on your brand name and increasing brand term bids.


In February 2006, 75% of the top search terms in every category were brand names, yet nearly one in eight of those searches drove traffic to websites not owned by that brand. Therefore, it is extremely important to identify companies capitalizing on your brand name and assess the extent of the problem based on your overall brand goals.

SearchAdNetwork’s comprehensive Brand Management and Trademark Protection services include:

  • Brand Traffic Analysis
  • Brand Protection
  • Brand Term Bid Management
  • Brand Awareness/Association Tracking

Brand Traffic Analysis

SearchAdNetwork uses Media Agent, our in-house tracking and reporting technology system, to locate the final destination of searchers using your brand name. We can also detect common misspellings and associated terms that drive traffic to your site. Armed with knowledge of competitors and affiliates receiving traffic from your trademark along with misspellings and linked terms, we are able to offer protection on your brand name.

Brand Protection

The leading search engines provide varying degrees of protection. Brief summaries of each engines protection policy follow:

  • Google – limited investigation of reasonable complaints; does not arbitrate disputes. If complaint is approved, Google requests advertisers to remove trademarked term(s) from ad copy. Within the U.S. and Canada, Google will not disable keywords.


  • Yahoo! – allows bids on trademarked terms if advertiser’s site has content that (a) refers to trademark, its owner or related product or (b) uses term in generic or descriptive manner.


  • MSN – requires that advertisers agree not to bid on keywords or use terms in ad text that may infringe trademark of third party. Exceptions: vendor reselling authentic goods under the trademark; informational site that does not sell any goods; or dictionary terms.


  • Ask – requests that advertisers respect intellectual property of others and accept sole responsibility for ad content and keywords. Ask does not act as publisher of ad content and will not arbitrate disputes; however, Ask will investigate good-faith claims by brand owners.

In addition to filing complaints with search engines, brand owners can write exclusion policies into contracts with affiliates to prevent them from bidding on the brand terms. Furthermore, the common misspellings can be utilized in two ways: included in meta tags and registered as domains.

Brand Term Bid Management

Like most advertisers, you’re probably wondering, "Why should I bid on my own brand name?" While a valid question, there are several reasons why you should bid on your brand name:

  1. Optimal listing placement – your site will most likely be the top organic listing but it will be hidden under up to three paid listings. Also, appearing in both the organic and paid listings can increase click through rates as much as 50%.


  2. Control of ad copy – include promotions or deals, tailor messages to specific audiences, reflect current news stories, etc.


  3. Control landing page – send consumers to most appropriate page of your site.


  4. Negative keywords – excludes irrelevant traffic and increases conversion rates.

Brand Awareness/Association Tracking

Media Agent allows us to determine timely and complete term awareness and associations by consumers. We are able to track, measure and chart brand awareness by breaking news items, new product roll outs, promotional launches and more. This data aids in bid management and optimization efforts and helps to safeguard your brand name.

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