Are You Bidding Against Yourself on Google Ads?

Are You Wasting Your Google Ads Budget?

California: Many businesses are unknowingly inflating their advertising costs on Google Ads by bidding against themselves, according to a new report from BrandPilot.ai. No competition, yet you keep driving the price up. Sounds ridiculous, right? But this is exactly what many advertisers unknowingly do every day on Google Ads.

BrandPilot.ai calls this the “Uncontested Paid Search Problem“—a situation where businesses pay for ads even when no competitors are bidding for the same keywords. In essence, they are bidding against themselves, inflating their Cost-Per-Click (CPC) unnecessarily.

The problem arises when a sponsored ad appears above an organic listing, yet no rival ads are present. Users often click the paid ad simply because it’s the first result, costing the business money when an organic click would have been free. Worse still, advertisers continue paying high CPCs, even when there’s no real competition.

Data from BrandPilot.ai reveals that branded keywords face no competition 20–30% of the time, while non-branded keywords see moments of no competition 5–10% of the time. With Google’s search revenue reaching $264 billion in 2024, businesses may be throwing away more than $27 billion annually on unnecessary CPC costs.

So how do advertisers fix this? One approach is to pause sponsored ads when no competition is detected, allowing organic search rankings to do the heavy lifting. However, this requires ensuring the brand consistently ranks at the top for relevant searches.

Another method is “bid-walking“, where marketers create a duplicate ad that appears only when no competition exists. By gradually lowering its CPC, they can retrain the algorithm, reducing costs significantly—sometimes as low as $0.01 per click.

For businesses investing heavily in Google Ads, the message is clear: it’s time to rethink bidding strategies and stop wasting budget on uncontested ads.

Disclaimer: The news articles published on Innovate Marketers are based on reports from reputable third-party sources and are not original reporting by Innovate Marketers. While we strive to ensure accuracy and integrity, we cannot guarantee the completeness or timeliness of the information provided.

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