Bidding on brands that are not unique.

Strategy needed.

[jecasc]

For years I have run an adwords campaign for a brand we are selling. Recently the cost per conversion have gone through the roof however. Where I was paying 8 EUR/sale I am now paying 35 EUR/sale.

Background: The brand belongs to a middle sized company. However there is another big international company from the US with the same brand name, selling similar products. Until some time ago, the US company wasn't allowed to sell here, because the trademark was already taken by this smaller company. However recently they struck a deal which allows them to use the brandname. Now I am facing the problem that people search for the brand name, click on my ad, realize I sell products from company A and not B and leave the website.

Any ideas on what I could do?

Selling the other brand is not an option, they are not allowed to sell to us because the contract limits their distribution channels.

[LucidSW]

Obviously, this other site is taking sales away from you. The biggest reason is likely that they are doing a better job than you to convince visitors to buy from them. You've got to change your sales message and convince that your product is as good, better really, than the other. Hint: it's not always the price. You may have to change your ads too to do a better pre-sell job and get more clicks. They may be taking clicks away from you, through Adwords and/or the SERPs.

[wheel]

Put something in the ads to deter clicks. Qualify the traffic.

Or put up an affiliate offer for their products (or a competitor's).

[Eschatonic]

If you believe the problem is that people think you are someone else, you need to clarify who you are in your copy.

[DanAbbamont]

How are your CPC, CTR, traffic and conversion rates compared to how they used to be?

If you've got a similar CPC and CTR, but your conversion ratio has dropped like crazy, then people are clicking your ad expecting the other product. This could benefit you if, say, you are able to put up a comparison landing page and convince people that you are the better option. If the other one is a better deal though, don't expect great results.

You could qualify your traffic with your ad copy, but your CTR will drop and therefore your CPC will likely increase to some degree depending on competition in the ads.

I wouldn't ever want this to happen to me, but I'd split test, split test, and split test some more.

[jecasc]

It is only the conversion ratio that has dropped. Winning customers over is not very likely to succeed. In this niche customers are very attached to brands and the price range and target customers are different. One is a luxury brand, the other is not.

The problem is that even the manufacturers names are the same, else I would have included the name of the manufacturer into the ad. I guess I have to figure out what people know about the brands and find an angle that let's people immediatly recognize the difference in one or two words. Won't be an easy task...