Should I use our product name as a keyword?

Our page is first in the SERP anyway

[Steve6]

We manufacture and sell our product, which is named "BlueWidget6000". When we first joined AdWords, I noticed that one of our competitors, who sells a competing product, bid on the keyword BlueWidget6000. So I thought, "Well, if they can do it, so can we." so I bid on a keyword of the name of their product, but that's a different story.

Anyway, this competitor was the only advertiser to bid on our product name, and I didn't want them being the only AdWords entry on the right of the page, so I also bid on BlueWidget6000.

I guess I scared them off, because now only our ad shows up when you search for BlueWidget6000.

The question is, is there any reason to continue to bid on our own product name? After all, if we don't bid on it now then there won't be any sponsored links, so the user's view will naturally go 100% to the organic results, and we are at #1 and #2 there. All the other links on the SERP are pages that link back to our site anyway.

So why am I paying even $.05 for these? The CTR for BlueWidget6000 is less than my average CTR. Can anyone think of a reason not to delete that keyword?

[robjones2]

I had a similar issue, and took the view that if i'm in the top three, its evident that the user intended to find my site by entering my site/product name, so is more likely going to click on the natural listing, no need to advertise and waste money.

1. it depends on the competitor. If he's saying "Cheaper than BlueWidget3000", or other comparative, you may be losing some traffic.

2. Also, consider the other search engines/content pages that google is affiliated to where you would be benefitting from impressions.

3. You might not be losing money all the time, as a lot of people would still click on the natural listing even if the adword came up.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Sounds as if you've done your research, Steve6, so I may be wrong about this. Still, it's worth mentioning:

It's a very rare keyword that has only one advertiser - so be aware that you might have some competitors who are not budgeted sufficiently to show 24/7, and whose ads show only part-time. This is extremely common.

One other factor I'd try to track as closely as possible: are you making money from this ad? If not, then that certainly points towards either getting rid of the ad, or working to optimize it to the point where you are making money.

You may also wish to experiment with pausing the ad for awhile, and seeing what actually happens to your revenue during that period, as compared to a similar period in which the ad was running.

AWA

[eWhisper]

It's a fairly common technique for companies to bid on their own name or product names when launching a specific campaign and want to control which page the visitor sees first.

With SERPS, you can't always control entry points. If there's an offer you want to make (either a new product, a special offer to increase conversions, etc.), then the use of ads over relying on SERP placement can be a very effective campaign.