When running competitor campaigns in Google Ads, there is a clear and important distinction between how competitor brand names may be used as keywords versus how they may appear in ad copy. Violating this distinction risks trademark infringement.
You can use a competitor's name as a keyword. You cannot use a competitor's trademark in the ad itself.
Google permits bidding on competitor brand names as keywords — this is a standard and legal practice for capturing search intent. However, displaying a competitor's trademarked name in your ad copy (headlines, body text, structured snippets, callouts, etc.) is a trademark violation and is not permitted.
When building a competitor campaign, verify the following before launch:
Run separate campaigns per competitor rather than grouping multiple competitors into one campaign. This keeps performance metrics distinct and makes it easier to evaluate ROI per competitor and adjust budgets independently.
See also: [1] for guidance on managing stale campaigns in the account.
This policy was clarified during an internal strategy session for the CAI account when setting up new competitor campaigns targeting ZoomO and ZoomX. The team confirmed that competitor names would be used exclusively as keywords, with ad copy defaulting to generic product descriptors such as "Best Commercial Juicer."
"You can use it as a keyword and you can target anybody who's searching for that keyword, but you can't actually put somebody else's trademark in the ad."
— Mark Hope, CAI strategy call
Related client work: [2] · [3]