Brand Protection 101: How to Defend Your Brand Online

Your brand is more than a snazzy logo or clever slogan. It’s a symbol of the identity, reputation and trust you’ve painstakingly built over the years.

It’s your most valuable asset; without it, you lack the very thing that helps you build meaningful and lasting relationships with customers. Not to mention, a brand without a distinct identity will struggle to differentiate itself from competitors.

As competition in the digital world is fiercer than ever, other brands will try to capitalize on the success you’ve built. And that’s why online brand protection needs to be at the top of your to-do’s

Here, we go through what brand protection is, why you need it and how you can protect your brand with Similarweb.

What is brand protection?

Brand protection is a set of proactive measures a company takes to safeguard their brand’s identity, reputation and intellectual property from unauthorized use, infringement or damage.

It’s a brand’s knight in shining armor ⚔️ working to uphold the integrity and value of a brand, and monitor competitive threats to stop others profiting off its successes.

In digital marketing, we narrow down the definition of brand protection to safeguarding a brand’s name and branded keywords against competitive bids in paid search. This is very common practice and widespread, and can have a huge, negative impact on brands.

What are the different types of brand abuse?

Brand abuse is any unauthorized or malicious activity against your company’s brand elements, assets or intellectual property. These aggressive actions often lead to financial losses, damage to your reputation or the erosion of customer trust and loyalty.

Brand abuse comes in many shapes and forms,  including:

• Copyright piracy – your images, logo or music is duplicated without permission
• Counterfeiting – the illegal cloning of your products or logo
• Copycat sites – when another domain uses your official brand name
• Social media impersonation – another account creates an identical profile, claiming to be you
• PPC ad hijacking – when your brand name or ad copy are cloned in advertising campaigns
• Bidding on your brand – when others bid on your branded keywords in advertising campaigns

Why is brand protection important?

Digital brand protection helps safeguard your brand against a multitude of online threats, while also helping it to flourish. It’s an investment in your brand’s future, ensuring it stays resilient, relevant and competitive amidst the digital chaos.

Here’s just a few benefits of brand protection:

1) Protect your reputation

When others steal your brand name to create fake websites and profiles, post copy-cat ads or spread conflicting messaging under your name, this skews how customers perceive your brand. This leads to confusion, fear, and lack of trust which will tarnish your brand’s image.

2) Reduce financial loss

When they’ve lost trust in your brand, they simply won’t want to buy from you. So, every penny you put into brand protection will secure that bottom line.

3) Safeguard branded terms

Your branded keywords are the foundation of your online presence and any traffic they bring is rightfully yours. Brand protection stops competitors from stealing your branded traffic by alerting you whenever they bid on your branded terms.

4) Maintain customer trust and loyalty

Customer’s trust can take years to earn yet be destroyed in a moment. This trust forms the foundation of your relationship with them. By protecting your brand’s integrity, you ensure they continue to rely on your brand’s perceived quality and maintain positive associations with it.

5) Gain a competitive advantage

When you stop others from piggy-backing on your success, you help your brand thrive in a competitive landscape. It makes space for you to strengthen your brand’s positioning in the market and differentiate from competing brands, giving you the competitive edge you need.

How to protect your brand with Similarweb

Comprehensive brand protection strategies involve many different components, from cybersecurity and online monitoring to legal enforcement.

It may sound like a hefty task but with the right tools and strategies, keeping your brand protected is pretty achievable. Even easy – when you use Similarweb.

Our expertise focuses on the biggest target area: online monitoring. More specifically, the paid search arena.

Our brand protection solution lets you know when new competitors emerge, tracks websites bidding on your branded terms and identifies copycat sites or counterfeiters so you can report them immediately.

You’ll know where and when to react so you stay in control of your brand’s narrative online, keeping your integrity and reputation in check. Sounds good, right?

Here’s how to set up Brand Protection with Similarweb:

Step One – Create a Brand Protection Campaign

Who does brand positioning better than Nike? Their catchy slogans have made their way in our everyday vocabulary. So let’s use them as an example here.

When setting up a brand protection campaign with Similarweb, Nike could either create one umbrella campaign that covers all of their branded terms or separate ones that focus on terms related to specific products/campaigns. For example, one for Air Max and another for Dunks.

To set up a campaign with Similarweb, head to our Brand Protection module. Here, Nike will name their campaign and set up alerts by email:

Next, they specify search engine, location and device for a more targeted approach (they can add up to 3). Nike is a global brand with a varied customer base, so it will have to monitor ad campaigns across many regions:

Next, they add in the branded keywords to monitor:

To avoid manually typing in the keywords, Nike can add an existing keyword list from the platform, or import one from Excel. Then, they’re done!

Although we have been primarily focused on protecting branded keywords, it’s also a good idea to track non-branded keywords that are central to your products or services.

These are more general keywords that you would like to be prominently featured for in search results. For example, Nike may want to dominate search results for terms like ‘running shoes’ or ‘basketball shoes’.

Step Two – Track your competitors’ campaigns

Similarweb will collect data based on your criteria and scan your competitors’ campaigns for various types of brand abuse. We will:

• Alert you when competitors try to steal your traffic
• Let you know when your ads are being hijacked – you’ll know the ad copies and landing pages that are targeting your brand name and keywords
• Monitor your partners and affiliates to ensure they are using the right messaging and representing your brand the way you want

Here’s what Nike would see:

In this view, Nike would be able to see the ads exactly as they appear in search results, along with the URL, keywords that drive traffic to the ad, its paid position and rank, and how many days the ad has been active. 

Step Three – Pivot your strategies

The best thing about monitoring your competitors’ campaigns for moves against your brand is that you’ll know exactly when and how to react. These timely alerts give you critical opportunities to pivot and re-strategize so you can hold on to those top advertising spots in search results.

But how? Here are some strategies to consider:

• Bid on your keywords more aggressively
• Explore alternative keywords to target (long tail variations)
• Enhance your ad copy and ad creatives
• Optimize and analyze your landing pages
• Take legal action if necessary (report copycat sites/counterfeit products)
• Ensure your brand is legally protected (trademarks and intellectual property rights)

With the right strategic pivots, you can quickly and efficiently counter competitive moves and maintain a strong presence for your brand name and key terms, and safeguard your brand’s visibility in the SERPs.

Step Four – Stay vigilant

The key to an effective brand protection strategy lies in staying vigilant over the long term. Even the smallest tweaks over time can help strengthen your brand’s identity and reputation online. You should:

• Make competitor monitoring a routine practice
• Leverage tools like Similarweb’s Brand Protection feature to automate competitor tracking
• Review and adapt your brand protection measures to keep up with evolving challenges and new/emerging threats

In conclusion…

That’s it on brand protection. By now you know what it is, its many forms and why brand protection strategies couldn’t be more important to the identity, reputation and integrity of your brand.

You can now maintain the trust and loyalty of your customers, fend off competitive threats, hold on to the traffic that’s rightfully yours and keep a stronger than ever presence in search results. So what are you waiting for? Just do it. ✔️

And who better to help than Similarweb? With our Brand Protection feature, you’ll stay alert and resilient in an ever-evolving and dynamic digital marketplace.

FAQs

What is brand protection?

Brand protection is a proactive strategy that company employes to safeguard its brand’s identity, reputation, value and intellectual property. This includes defending against unauthorized use, infringement, or damage to the brand. The objective is to uphold the integrity and value of the brand while monitoring and addressing competitive threats.

Why is brand protection important?

Brand protection is vital because it helps shield a brand from a multitude of online threats, thus preserving its value and reputation. Effective brand protection ensures the brand remains resilient, relevant, and competitive in the digital marketplace. It protects the brand’s reputation, reduces financial losses, maintains customer trust and loyalty, and provides a competitive advantage by preventing others from exploiting the brand’s success.

What are examples of brand protection strategies?

Effective brand protection strategies could include more aggressive bidding on branded keywords for better search result visibility, targeting specific long-tail keywords for broader audience reach, and refining ad content and landing pages for stronger brand appeal. You can also report copycat sites or counterfeit products and secure your trademarks and intellectual property rights.

How can I protect my brand using Similarweb?

Similarweb’s Brand Protection feature lets you monitor for threats and competitors, receive alerts on keyword bidding, and track infringement activities, like copycat sites. Similarweb provides data-driven insights for proactive brand protection and strategic decision-making, helping to maintain your brand’s online presence and reputation.

by Monique Ellis

Content Marketing Manager

Monique, with 7 years in data storytelling, enjoys crafting content and exploring new places. She’s also a fan of historical fiction.