Who is bidding on your brand? How to find outWho is bidding on your brand? How to find out

On Wednesday 14 October at 21:40, Yourbrand's affiliate manager searches “yourbrand discount code” on her phone. Two ads sit above the results: one headed “Yourbrand Codes · Up to 30% off” from a site she doesn't know, and then Yourbrand's own. At 10:00 the next morning, on the office computer, the same search shows only Yourbrand's ad.

Both pages were real. A results page is put together for one searcher, in one place, on one device, at one moment, and every advertiser chooses where, when and on which searches its ads can show. So “who's bidding on our brand?” has no answer from a single search. It takes several sources, each answering part of the question, and this guide goes through them in the order that wastes least time.

What “bidding on your brand” covers

Brand bidding is any advertiser's ads showing on searches for your name. It isn't only advertisers with your name as a keyword. Google's match types let a keyword reach searches related to it, and close variants apply to every match type, so an ad can reach your name without anyone having typed it into a keyword list.

And your name is a family of searches, not one. The bare name, its common misspellings and your web address typed as a search are mostly people heading for your site. “yourbrand discount code”, “yourbrand voucher code” and “yourbrand promo code” are people close to buying. Each is its own auction, with its own advertisers, and the one your team checks is usually the bare name.

• You. Your brand campaign, and any other account your company or agency runs.
• Resellers and marketplaces. Shops that sell your products can advertise on your name. Google's Trademarks policy makes room for ads whose landing page sells the goods.
• Competitors. Google doesn't restrict trade marks used as keywords, so a rival can bid on your name.
• Affiliates. PPC affiliates your programme allows, and ones it doesn't, sending the click to their own page or straight to your shop.
• Voucher and cashback sites, advertising their page about your codes.

Six places to look

1. A search of your own. It shows the page now, for you. Google says that if you keep searching for your own ad without clicking it, you may stop seeing it, because it stops showing ads it thinks you aren't interested in. Each search also adds an impression to whoever showed. Ten searches from one desk are one viewpoint, ten times.

2. Ad Preview and Diagnosis. The tool in Google Ads that shows the same results as a Google search, for a location, language and device you choose, without adding impressions. It shows other advertisers' ads as well as yours. It has no setting for the hour, ads ranking on page two or later may be missing, and Google says it may not reflect all campaign activity.

3. About this advertiser. Open the panel from the three-dot icon beside a search ad on a computer, or the info icon on a phone. Opening it isn't a click on the ad. For a verified advertiser it shows the legal name, or an approved trade mark name, and where it's based. For one that hasn't verified, it shows the name on its payments profile.

4. The Ads Transparency Center. Google's public library of ads. Search your brand name, then your web address, with the region set to the United Kingdom. Each advertiser has a page with its id (AR and 20 digits), whether it's verified and its ads, each with a Last shown date. It doesn't depend on where you search from, so it can list an advertiser whose ads you've never seen. It shows no keywords, final URLs or spend.

5. Auction insights on your brand campaign. The report lists the other advertisers in your auctions by display domain, with their impression share, overlap rate, position above rate and the rest. It only covers auctions your campaigns entered, gives no exact figure for a share under 10% and splits by day of week but never by hour. The Auction insights guide reads each column.

6. Your own records. The search terms report shows the searches that triggered your own ads, which tells you which brand searches you're in. In GA4, once every Google Ads account of yours is linked, google / cpc sessions whose Google Ads campaign is (not set) can come from someone else's account. Your network shows publishers whose sales follow searches for your name.

What a new advertiser can cost

Two bills move when another ad appears on your name. Your own price, because your actual CPC is the least you need to beat the ad ranked below yours. And commission, when the ad is an affiliate's and the shopper buys through it.

The numbers are made up. If your terms allow that partner on code searches, it's a price you agreed. If they don't, it's worth a question, and the question needs a name, a time and the ad as it read. The guide to working out the cost builds the same sum from your own numbers, with the range if some of those orders would have come anyway.

How to check, step by step

1. Write the list of searches to check: your bare name, its usual misspellings, your web address, and the name with “discount code”, “voucher code”, “promo code” and “sale”.
2. In Ad Preview and Diagnosis, set the location to the United Kingdom, then to two or three cities, the language to English and the device to mobile, then computer. Run each search and keep a screenshot of each page.
3. For each ad you don't recognise, note the headline, the description, the display URL and whether it sat at the top or the bottom. On a real results page, open About this advertiser from its three-dot icon and note the name and country Google gives. The guide to reading the panel covers what each line means.
4. Search that name, then your web address, in the Ads Transparency Center with the region set to the United Kingdom. Note the advertiser's AR id, whether it's verified and the Last shown dates of its ads.
5. Open Auction insights on your brand campaign for the last 90 days, segmented by week and then by device. List every display domain and mark the ones you know.
6. If you don't bid on the code searches, Auction insights can't see them. Run a phrase match ad group on them for a few weeks, with a budget you're comfortable with, and read its Auction insights.
7. Look again in the evening and at the weekend. An ad schedule can keep an ad off the hours you usually look, and it runs on the advertiser's own account time zone.
8. Match every name against your own list: your accounts, your agency's, your resellers and your approved partners, with what each is allowed. Take the rest to your network as a question.

The ordinary explanations

An advertiser you don't recognise on your name usually has a plain reason to be there. Rule these out first, closest to home first.

• Your own second Google Ads account, an old one nobody closed, or one run by another team or your agency, under a company name you don't connect with your own.
• A reseller or marketplace seller advertising your products, which Google's policies allow.
• A partner your programme allows to bid on your name, perhaps with permission agreed before your time, and never written into the file you're reading.
• A voucher or cashback site advertising its own page about your brand. Unless your terms say otherwise, that can be exactly what you agreed.
• A broad or phrase match keyword reaching your name through close variants, with nobody aiming at it.
• A publisher who never received your terms, or a sub-network's publisher who didn't know them.
• A campaign still running after the arrangement behind it ended.

Some will still turn out to be outside what your programme terms allow. Then the answer is a correction, agreed through your network, with the records attached. Aware, not accusing covers how to ask, and the guide to reporting an ad covers Google's route when it's needed.

Keeping a record that holds up

One sighting is a starting point. The same advertiser on several days, at stated times, with the ad as it read each time, is something your network can match against its click records. For each sighting keep the date and time with the time zone, the search exactly as typed, the place and device, the ad as it read, its position, and the advertiser Google names with its AR id. Don't click the ad: a click costs its advertiser money, and it can leave a tracking cookie in your browser that earns commission on a later order.

Doing this by hand works for one search, once. Doing it for six searches, nights included, every week, is where an outside record helps: one that searches on a schedule, from places that aren't your office, and keeps every ad with the advertiser Google names for it.