Showing Advert for Competing Product

[The Cricketer]

Am I allowed to show my advert when someone types in the name of a competing product? The competing product name will not be in my advert.

eg if I was Coca-Cola could I show my Coco-Cola advert when someone types in Pepsi?

[mike_ppc]

If it's not a trademark issue, I don't see any problem ...

Just add the KWs to your list and you're done. In fact, best thing is try and see what happens!

[Steve6]

The competing product name will not be in my advert.

Actually, that's not even a requirement. For instance, if you were Coke, you could even have an ad that says: "Survey shows that Coke tastes better than Pepsi" as long as the landing page for that ad shows sufficient evidence for your claim. I suppose such evidence must include a link to the third-party site that ran the survey, but I really don't know because Google's exact policy is hard to find and tends to change.

I do know that your best plan is to just do it. You don't need to ask anyone, just create the keywords and ads. They will get reviewed, although it may be a couple of days later, and if the ad is not approved, it will simply be disabled - the rest of your ads will continue to run and your account won't be penalized. Furthermore, Google will send you an email message that tells why the ad was not approved so you can make (minor) changes and resubmit it.