This development brings the UK and Ireland into line with the US and Canada who have been running this policy since 2004. The rest of Europe will not be affected by this change and so bidding against monitored trademarked keywords will remain prohibited.

Google has suggested that 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.

So, what will be the implications of this change?

Firstly, advertisers who secured brand protection, will now face inflated costs to their brand bidding; reducing the return on investment and quality of a campaign’s performance. They may even find that their Quality Score will lower as a result, again increasing cost per click and reducing positioning, click through and conversion rates.

A loss of traffic should also be expected, as one brand will benefit from the visibility of another. It also creates an even bigger problem with affiliates, who normally operate under strict guidelines. Again this change in policy will open up the market, allowing affiliates to bid aggressively on branded terms. Aggregators such as MoneySupermarket.com are likely to gain, given that they will now be able to bid on high street brand trademarks.

What should you do?

There are certain steps advertisers can take to minimise the impact on their business. Firstly, you should start monitoring your brand positioning and average cost per click and take note of any changes to see which of your competitors is appearing in your brand space.

Your brand campaign should have the best click through rate, Quality Score and lowest cost per click; so being wiped out immediately shouldn’t be an issue. However, expect to raise minimum bid levels (within reason) and say goodbye to those £0.01 CPC’s.

Consider changing your ad copy to reflect the authenticity and authority of your brand – adding words like ‘Official’ to the copy. Also include exclusivity on these terms in the ad copy as a rule when negotiating with affiliates.

Our advice with regards to affiliate relationships is to strike an agreement where you have bid caps on branded terms. Although Google has opened up brand bidding on keywords, affiliates still work for you and therefore must abide by your guidelines.

If you haven’t already, create a ‘competitors’ campaign. The change in policy isn’t all bad as it also presents a cross-sell opportunity for you too, therefore choose which competitors you wish to compete with and develop a strategy to target their brand terms. Please note that whilst the level of volume and click through rate will be good, competitor campaigns are generally a branding exercise.  Therefore managing a balanced cost per acquisition isn’t always possible.

At this early stage it’s difficult to predict where this change will take us, or what impact it will have on each of the vertical markets. Overall, we believe this move will damage the reputation of key brands, and lower the credibility of paid search results.

Allowing any advertiser to use the trademark of others defeats the object of Google’s Quality Score. I'm not sure Google justifying the outcome will result in better/clearer results when this opens up the space to anyone, whether they represent the brand or not. Google's change in policy will ultimately increase advertising costs and will reduce the credibility of branded search results. Therefore having a plan is essential – be prepared and the surprises shouldn’t affect your overall strategy.