Conquesting Keywords refer to keywords that are competitor’s brand names or terms. Advertising on competitor’s keywords is a very contentious topic in the industry, but here are some words of wisdom:
1. Do NOT expect strong performance from a conquesting campaign. You won’t get it. Quality scores will be low, CTRs will be low, and CPCs will be high.
2. Put conquesting keywords in a different campaign from the rest of your account. Otherwise their poor performance will hurt your campaign history (and account history) throughout the rest of your account. If you can put them in a separate account, do so.
3. Be sure to check the laws of the country that you are advertising in before advertising on any competitor’s keywords. In the EU especially, the laws are stricter than they are in the US, for example.
4. Regardless, be sure you are not misleading the users in your ads. It’s against the rules to do so. Don’t pretend to be another company or product – it will backfire. Even if you’re somehow able to run the ads, they still won’t convert.
