Do a search for almost any product or service and you’ll most likely see a variety of paid ads on the results page. Search marketers often talk about the importance of “being there” when a potential customer is looking for you. But some advertisers don’t want to be there just when their own customers are searching; they’d like to be present when their competition’s customers search as well!

Campaigns that target the competition by bidding on competitor brand terms are known as conquesting campaigns. Do a search for BMW and you’ll see an ad for Infiniti in the results. A search for the home store Linens ‘n Things shows an ad for Macy’s housewares department within the results. What are some of the benefits of conquesting campaigns? What are the downfalls?

Conquesting campaigns are seen as a way of increasing brand recognition and building awareness. By aligning your ad with competitor brand terms, you’re providing consumers with an alternative to your competition. Your ad messaging gives you the opportunity to highlight specific features and advantages that your product has over the competition. You may even sway a potential customer to your brand rather than the competition.

There is a downside to running conquesting campaigns, however. For starters, some engines won’t allow you to run them at all by banning brands from bidding on other brand’s terms. And you can’t refer to the competition directly in your ads in any of the engines if their brand name is trademarked. Conquesting campaigns also tend to have a low CTR and an even lower conversion rate, since the user was searching for a competitor specifically. On top of the poor performance metrics, CPCs tend to be exorbitantly high due to low relevancy, and some people feel that bidding on a competitor’s brand name is unethical. But if your competitors are conquesting, do you have to as well to keep up?

What do you think? Has anyone had a lot of success using conquesting campaigns or are they more trouble than they’re worth?

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