Google say that for trademark complaints after the 4th April 2008 they will no longer review a term corresponding to the trademarked term as a keyword trigger, and from May the 5th 2008 all keywords that were disabled as a result of trademark investigations will no longer be restricted in the UK and Ireland.
It would appear that they are only going to enforce trademark restrictions in relation to the adcopy alone, all keywords will be allowed to run and trigger an ad (subject to the usual Quality Score and minimum bid requirements etc.) as long as that ad does not contain a trademarked term with a restriction in place on Google.
Their key motivator according to them is “A key to achieving this goal with our ads is providing relevant choices and giving users the opportunity to determine which ads they find most relevant.” however one can’t help but think that as trademark terms are invariably high traffic brand or product terms that this is solely a revenue based decision as no doubt there will be legal cases popping up challenging this shortly.
This policy revision only applies to the UK and Ireland and is a bit of a surprise, it will mean that previously off limit trademarked terms are now wide open as long as the adcopy doesn’t mention the trademarked term, many affiliates are going to have unrestricted bidding opportunities on trademarked terms now, Merchants are left holding a double edged sword as they can now bid on competitor trademark terms BUT their competitors can now bid on theirs too.
Interesting days ahead for affiliates, merchants, agencies and networks as the trademark space will now be a bubbling mass of rabid activity from all angles for many brands.
The agency update email we received explained Google’s point of view well, below are relevant extracts from it :
”I want to make it clear that this is a revision that only affects keyword bidding. Advertisers and Agencies are accustomed to the fact that users typing in their trademarked term as part of a two, three or four word search will have always resulted in competitor ads running.For example, someone typing in ‘x,y,z credit cards’ in the search box will see lots of different, relevant credit card ads because broad matching will bring up ads for those advertisers bidding against the keywords ‘credit card’. So, we hope this will be a familiar step for agencies and advertisers.
However, despite this trademarked keyword change, our strict ads text policy remains unchanged: unauthorised advertisers will not be able to use a monitored trademarked term in their ad text. So, ads of trademark owners are still likely to have the edge over those of non-trademark owners because these ads can use the trademark terms in the ad text: they are likely to have higher click through rates; and therefore more likely to achieve a better position in the sponsored links.
This change brings the UK and Ireland into line with the US and Canada which has been running this policy since 2004. A good proportion of users in the US and Canada have been clicking on competitor ads even when searching against trademarked terms, suggesting that they find the greater number of ads relevant and helpful when researching or making a purchase.”
Read more about how you may be affected by the AdWords Trademark Policy Revision
April 4th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Whilst G may allow it, affiliates will only be paid commission though if the merchant T&Cs allow it. They may end up out of pocket.
April 4th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
True.. however as many networks just look the other way on brand bidding activity only those merchants who take the time to look will catch any trademark activity, most dodgy affiliates will continue to bid evenings and weekends and have some plausable looking content site as cover.
April 4th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
[...] Google Trademark Shake Up - Apocalypse Ahoy ! by Shane [...]
April 5th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
As a man in the know Shane what’s going on?
Doug
April 6th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Good question Doug..
They’ve had amazing year on year growth and now the volume is looking stagnant and their stock price is diving they need to grow revenues and restore investor confidence.
Aside from the $3.1 billion doubleclick diversification purchase and their goal of having a significant display advertising presence via that by the close of 2009 Google hasn’t evolved much over the years and due to the market penetration topping out they are having a hard time increasing volumes on the paid search front so they are making an inward start on milking what traffic and advertisers they have. Hence the “Quality Score” updates, AKA “reason to make you pay more in a comply or die style”, as well as the embedded search boxes, a great way to show ads on brand terms to eager consumers.
Then on top of hte above steps announced updates to the UK and Ireland trademark policy to basically open the floodgates on brand terms which will add millions of extra ad impressions every day on previously minimally covered terms (normally just the brand owner or brand bidding group if any bidding taking place at all)
AdWords is going to continue to evolve into an ever more difficult environment for many advertisers as Google continues to try and find new excuses to make existing advertisers pay more for their traffic and monetise every search made.
It’s going to be a fun year methinks !
April 7th, 2008 at 8:17 am
[...] I won’t steal the guys thunder as Shane has written a great piece on this HERE [...]
April 7th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
[...] Robinson, posted up an extract from a Google email showing that users are likely to click on ads even when they search for a [...]
April 8th, 2008 at 6:55 am
[...] Of course! Google have suggested (or at least said in order to justify their policy change) that a “good proportion of users in the US and Canada have been clicking on competitor ads” (Revenue Addict). [...]