I came across a post on LinkedIn today.
It made me laugh and cry at the same time:
It’s an example of a trend I’ve spotted in many accounts:
Google is increasingly matching our non-brand phrase match keywords to competitor brand searches!
This also explains why so many of us see an increase in CPCs for our branded keywords. Google matches user queries for our brand to non-brand keywords of our competitors, thus increasing competition in the auction -> higher CPCs, higher spend.
What can we do about it?
Not much, I am afraid. It’s Google being Google and trying to make some more money.
One thing we can do: monitor the auction insights for our brand keywords and ask each and every competitor that shows up to add our brand to their account negatives. (Good luck with that.)
What a Google S-show…
– Nils