Brand Bidding
The X-ray of Brand Bidding: how much does your brand lose to freeloaders on Google?
branddi ·
You invest in branding, in campaigns, in building brand recognition. But when a potential customer types exactly your company name into Google… the first result that appears may not be yours. That's what Brand Bidding does, silently, every day.
The problem isn't in your media strategy. It's not in your budget. It's in the functioning of Google's own auction — which allows any advertiser to buy your brand as a keyword and appear before you at the exact moment the consumer has already decided they want to buy from you.
The result? Inflated brand CPC, diverted qualified clicks, and revenue going to who should be your customer — not your competitor. If you've ever wondered why the cost of your brand campaigns goes up for no apparent reason, the answer is probably here.
If the topic makes sense for your business, read on — what comes next could change the way you view the top of your funnel.
What happens when someone Googles your brand
The logic seems simple: if someone types in your company name, they It's ready to buy. It’s a bottom-of-the-funnel search, with high intent and lower conversion costs. It should be the safest time for your marketing investment.
But Google Ads works like an auction. And any advertiser can bid on branded keywords — including using another company's name. This means that competitors, affiliates or unauthorized resellers could appear above your brand at the very moment when the consumer is about to choose you.
Who are the “free riders” of Brand Bidding
Not every advertiser who uses your name on Google is a bona fide partner. Among the main profiles:
Direct competitorsuse your brand to steal a click that would otherwise be yours and redirect the consumer to their own offers.
Affiliates who practice brand arbitragebuy cheap brand traffic, redirect to a landing page and resell the lead to you — charging commission for a customer that was already yours.
Unauthorized resellersappear with lower prices or unapproved conditions, creating confusion and damaging brand reputation.
Opportunistic advertiserstake advantage of the search volume of established brands to generate qualified traffic without any legitimate commercial relationship.
The result is always the same: your brand attracts interest, another company closes the sale.
The real impact on numbers
Brand Bidding is not a theoretical problem. It appears directly in campaign results. According to performance studies in paid search, the presence of competitors in branded keywords can increase the branded CPC between 20% and 31%, as the auction now has more competitors competing for the same terms.
In addition to the higher cost per click, there is a direct loss of qualified clicks. Industry research indicates that unprotected brand campaigns can lose up to 70% of clicks to third-party advertisers, especially in highly competitive categories like financial services, retail and technology.
And the impact goes beyond the media: each diverted click represents a sale that could have been yours, a customer that didn't make it to your funnel, and a branding investment that indirectly funded a competitor.
Why this isn't “just a Google problem Ads”
It’s tempting to treat Brand Bidding as a technical paid media issue. But the problem goes deeper: it's about brand governance.
Every time you run an ad, create content, participate in an event or close a media partnership, you are building awareness and purchase intent associated with your name. When this intention is captured by third parties at the time of search, the investment across the entire marketing chain — awareness, consideration, performance — ends up benefiting those who compete with you.
As the Semrush report on PPC and brand safety points out, brands that do not actively monitor their search terms have, on average, significantly higher CPAs and less control over the customer journey. The problem is not specific: it is structural.
What Branddi does in practice
Branddi was created to solve exactly this problem — from end to end, without leaving the process in the hands of the marketing team or the legal team alone.
24/7 monitoringof sponsored ads in the main search engines, including Google and Bing. The platform identifies in real time who is using customers' branded terms inappropriately.
Automatic notificationof offenders, with recording and evidence of each occurrence. This creates a history that supports the following actions.
Friendly and extrajudicial legal action, resolving most cases quickly, without needing to contact the Judiciary. In 2023, Branddi notified more than 30 thousand companies for improper Brand Bidding.
Effective removal of unfair ads, with follow-up until complete resolution — not just reporting the problem.
Average results for Branddi clients include up to a 90% reduction in brand CPC and recovery of up to 25% of revenue that was being diverted to third parties.
The top of the funnel is yours. Take back control.
If you invest in branding and performance media, but still don't monitor what happens when consumers search for your company name on Google, you're leaving the most valuable part of the funnel unprotected.
Brand Bidding won't stop on its own. But it can be controlled — with technology, expertise and process.