Brand Protection Checklist for PPC Managers

Brand protection on Google Ads isn't a single action — it's a system. Trademark filings, campaign structure, monitoring tools, legal preparation, and ongoing review all need to work together. Miss one piece and you leave a gap that competitors or affiliates will exploit.

This checklist covers the 20 things every PPC manager should have in place. Work through it from top to bottom, tick off what's already done, and build a plan for the gaps.

Section 1: Foundation

These are the prerequisites. Without them, everything else is harder to enforce.

1. Register your trademark

If your brand name isn't registered as a trademark, your legal options are severely limited. File with the UK Intellectual Property Office (or the relevant authority in your market). Registration gives you the legal standing to file Google trademark complaints and send cease and desist letters. If you operate in multiple markets, consider registering in each jurisdiction — at minimum, cover the UK and the EU.

2. File trademark details with Google

Since Google's February 2025 policy change, you can no longer file blanket trademark protections. However, you should still familiarise yourself with the complaint process and have your trademark details ready to submit at short notice. For a full walkthrough, see our Google Ads brand protection guide. Bookmark the complaint form and keep a document with your registration number, registering office, and jurisdiction readily accessible.

3. Set up brand campaigns in Google Ads

Run dedicated brand campaigns targeting your exact brand name and close variations. This ensures you always appear in the top position when someone searches for your brand. Set aggressive bids — your quality score on your own brand terms should be near-perfect, so the actual CPC will be low. A well-structured brand campaign is your first line of defence against competitors appearing above you.

4. Configure brand exclusions

Use Google's brand exclusions feature (available in Performance Max and broad match campaigns) to prevent your non-brand campaigns from cannibalising your brand traffic. This keeps your brand data clean and ensures you can accurately measure competitor activity on your brand terms.

5. Claim your Google Business Profile

A verified Google Business Profile strengthens your presence on branded searches. It takes up additional real estate on the search results page, pushing competitor ads further down. Ensure your profile is complete, accurate, and actively managed.

Section 2: Monitoring

You can't defend what you can't see. These items establish your visibility into competitor activity on your brand terms.

6. Review Auction Insights weekly

Google Ads Auction Insights shows you which advertisers are competing in the same auctions as your brand campaigns. Check this at least weekly. Look for new entrants, increasing impression share from competitors, and any domains you don't recognise. This is your built-in early warning system.

7. Set up automated brand monitoring

Start with a free brand audit to see who is currently bidding on your brand terms. Manual searches are unreliable — ads rotate, geo-targeting varies, and you'll only see what's served in your location at that moment. Set up automated monitoring that checks your brand terms across multiple locations and times of day. SerpAlert runs these checks continuously and alerts you when new competitors appear on your brand terms, capturing the full ad copy, destination URL, and timestamp for every appearance.

8. Monitor branded search terms in Search Terms reports

Review the search terms report for your brand campaigns regularly. Look for queries where competitor ads are showing (these won't appear directly in the report, but unusual search terms or declining click-through rates can indicate increased competition). Also watch for misspellings and variations of your brand that you should be targeting.

9. Track competitor ad copy changes

For a detailed comparison of the best tools for this job, see our guide to brand keyword monitoring tools and alerts. It's not enough to know that a competitor is bidding on your terms — you need to know what their ads say. If they're using your trademark in their ad copy, that's a policy violation you can report. If they're making misleading claims, you need to know. Keep a log of competitor ad copy over time to identify patterns and escalations.

10. Set up alerts for new competitors

Brand bidding threats don't stay static. New competitors enter your market, affiliates test brand bidding to see if you'll notice, and existing competitors ramp up their activity. Automated alerts ensure you find out about new threats within hours, not weeks.

Section 3: Defence

Active measures to defend your position in branded search results.

11. Optimise your organic brand presence

Strong organic rankings on your brand terms complement your paid campaigns and reduce your dependence on them. Ensure your homepage title tag and meta description are optimised for your brand name. Build out sitelinks in organic search by having a clear site structure. The more organic real estate you own, the less space there is for competitors.

12. Maximise ad extensions and assets

Use every available ad extension in your brand campaigns: sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, call extensions, location extensions, and image extensions. The goal is to make your brand ad as large and prominent as possible, pushing competitor ads further down the page and increasing your click-through rate.

13. Build sitelinks strategically

Your sitelinks should cover the most common reasons someone searches for your brand: your main product pages, pricing, contact, login, and any current promotions. Well-chosen sitelinks increase your ad's visual footprint and capture more specific intent, making it harder for a competitor's generic ad to compete.

14. Test responsive search ads for brand terms

Don't run a single static ad on your brand terms. Test multiple headline and description variations in responsive search ads. Include your brand name in multiple headlines, reference your unique selling points, and include a clear call to action. Google will optimise the combination, but give it strong material to work with.

15. Consider competitor conquesting carefully

This is about reciprocity. If you're bidding aggressively on a competitor's brand terms, expect them to do the same to you. Think strategically about whether conquesting is worth the inevitable retaliation. In some cases, a mutual agreement not to bid on each other's brand terms is more cost-effective than an ongoing bidding war.

Section 4: Legal Preparation

Have these ready before you need them. Scrambling to prepare a legal response after discovering a violation wastes time.

16. Prepare a cease and desist template

Have a customisable cease and desist letter drafted and approved by your solicitor. We have a ready-to-use trademark complaint template you can adapt. When you discover a competitor using your trademark in their ad copy, you can personalise and send it the same day rather than waiting weeks for legal to draft something from scratch. Include placeholders for the competitor's details, the specific violation, and the evidence.

17. Establish an evidence collection process

For any trademark complaint or legal action, you'll need documented evidence: screenshots with timestamps, the exact ad copy, the search query, the geographic location, and the destination URL. Define a standard process for capturing and storing this evidence. Automated monitoring tools handle this for you — SerpAlert, for instance, logs every ad appearance with all the detail needed for a formal complaint.

18. Build a relationship with an IP solicitor

Don't wait until you have a problem to find a solicitor. Identify a solicitor or firm that specialises in intellectual property and digital advertising. Have an initial conversation so they understand your brand and your exposure. When an issue arises, you'll be able to act quickly rather than starting from scratch.

Section 5: Ongoing Operations

Brand protection is a continuous process. These items keep your defences current.

19. Conduct a monthly brand protection review

Set a recurring monthly task to review your brand protection posture. During this review, check Auction Insights trends, review any new competitor activity flagged by your monitoring tools, assess whether any complaints or cease and desist letters need follow-up, and update your prohibited keywords list if you run an affiliate programme. Document findings and actions taken.

20. Reallocate budget based on competitive activity

Your brand campaign budget shouldn't be static. Use our brand campaign calculator to model the financial impact of different spend levels. If competitor activity increases, you may need to increase bids or budget to maintain your impression share. If a major competitor stops bidding on your terms (perhaps after a successful complaint), you can reduce spend. Review your brand campaign efficiency quarterly alongside your competitive monitoring data to ensure you're spending appropriately.

Putting the checklist to work

Print this out — or save it somewhere your team can access it — and work through each item. Most PPC managers will find they have some of these in place already but have gaps in others. The monitoring and legal preparation sections are where most teams are weakest, and they're also where the biggest risks sit.

Brand protection isn't glamorous work. It doesn't generate the same excitement as launching a new campaign or testing a creative concept. But it directly protects your revenue, your margins, and your brand equity. A competitor running misleading ads on your brand terms is taking money out of your pocket, and the only question is whether you've set up the systems to catch it and stop it.

Start with the foundation items if you're building from scratch. If your basics are already solid, focus on the monitoring and legal preparation sections — they're what separate brands that react to problems from brands that prevent them.