Many of our readers who run their own Pay Per Click campaigns will be aware of the changes affecting Google Adwords from next month. From May 5, advertisers can no longer have their brand name protected from being bid on by other companies. This, on the surface, sounds like bad news, but for the niche operators we represent it’s actually a golden opportunity to have a crack at some of the bigger fish.

To put Google’s decision into perspective, they are playing catch up with the US version rather than jumping into new and untested waters. Previously, if someone was bidding on your brand name, you could contact Google with proof your name is trademarked. If successful (likely for names like “Expedia”, a massive long shot for “Spanish Holidays), Google would block other companies from using it.

The new move from Google hasn’t eliminated this completely, but it has cut into the protection big brands have enjoyed.

Understandably, big brands are up in arms over this. They feel that they will be forced to spend a lot of money on ensuring that no other company beats them at their own game and gets a PPC listing above them on their name. For many of our clients, though, who are niche operators, the coin is flipped – and we have the golden opportunity to show those who are searching for a big brand that the little guy can offer exactly what they’re looking for and more, if they just give them a chance.

It also opens the door for you to bid on certain hotel brands that were previously blocked as registered trademarks. If you offer luxury rooms at the Hilton in London but were previously blocked from appearing for searches with that exact name, your frustrations are over. Of course, not being able to use the exact search term will put you at a disadvantage, because our research suggests that titles and descriptions work best when they are tailored to match the search terms, but it’s better than nothing and at least gives the smaller specialists a starting platform.

Of course, just because you can bid on the big names doesn’t necessarily mean that you should. As always you should keep a careful eye on your conversion rates. If the brand name keyword is costing a lot of money, with little to no conversion, then you’re better off letting the others fight for it. Anecdotal evidence from the US (where the new rule has been in place for nearly 4 years) suggests that this can simply lead to a higher spend with limited additional profits. With common sense and good keyword tracking, this shouldn’t be hard to measure for yourself though, and, as ever, it’s a case of weighing up the benefits.

We will keep an eye on how this affects our clients over the next few months, but in the meantime – as long as you’re not a massive brand who is likely to lose a lot of money from people trying to cash in on your success – we see no need to report this in the negative light that it’s been discussed elsewhere on the web. Ultimately, as it has been in effect in the USA since 2004 with no massive backlash, we’re confident that we’re still a long way from Google Apocalypse.