Software is one of the few industries where a buyer will type a competitor's name into Google and ask, in effect, for someone else. "Asana alternative." "Calendly vs." "Bamboohr alternative." These searches come from people who know the category, know the market leader and want options. For a smaller software company, that's an invitation.
It's also one of the most expensive invitations in Google Ads. These searches are rare, the bids on them are high and the trademark rules around them are easy to misread. Earlier chapters kept rival names out of every campaign as negatives (Chapter 5). This bonus chapter covers when to bid on them on purpose: how big the opportunity really is, what Google allows, who already does it and what the landing page has to look like for the click to pay off.
"Bamboohr Alternative" Drew About 70 Searches a Month at a Top Bid Estimate Near $277. Most Rivals' Names Look Like That.
Start with the numbers. We pulled "alternative" searches for each of the twelve sample software companies in Keyword Planner. For eight of the twelve, "[brand] alternative" barely registered, at 30 a month or less. Four stood out, each a name smaller rivals would want to be compared with:
- "Bamboohr alternative": 70 a month, estimates topping out near $277.
- "Chili piper alternative": 70, topping out near $162.
- "When i work alternative": 70, topping out near $133.
- "Copper crm alternative": 90, topping out near $98.
Our earlier category pulls showed the same shape at scale: "alternatives" searches came to 0.04% to 0.5% of each brand's search volume, and carried the highest bids in every category we checked. Tiny volume, top-dollar bids. That's what makes them worth a campaign of their own and dangerous anywhere else.
Two rules follow. First, these searches never run inside your category campaigns. Chapter 5 put competitor names on the negative list there, and that stays. Second, the competitor campaign gets its own budget, small and capped, so a few expensive clicks can't drain money from the searches that already bring qualified leads.
Google Lets You Bid on a Rival's Name. A Trademark Complaint Can Keep That Name Out of Your Ad Text.
The rules are clearer than most founders expect. Google's trademark policy says it "will not restrict" using trademarks as keywords. So you can bid on "calendly alternative" whether Calendly likes it or not.
The ad text is different. If a trademark owner files a complaint, Google will restrict "Using trademarks in an ad from a direct competitor," and it accepts those complaints only where the owner has shown it holds the trademark. In practice: your ad can appear when someone searches a rival's name, but once that rival has complained, your headline generally can't use the name. Uses that are purely informational aren't restricted, but a software company's own "X vs Y" page is an ad from a direct competitor, in our reading, not a neutral review.
Write the competitor ads so they work either way. Lead with what you offer that the rival's buyers complain about, "simple pricing," "set up in a day," "a real person on the phone," and keep the rival's name out of the headline. The search itself tells the buyer why your ad is there.
Only 23 of 640 Software Ads We Read Named a Rival. Ten of Them Named Microsoft Project.
When we read 640 recent Search ads from software companies in Google's Ads Transparency Center, only 23 named another company's product. Ten of those 23 named the same one: Microsoft Project, a target for several project management vendors ("MS Project Alternative," "Why Wrike Wins Over MS Project").
Most of the rest followed one pattern: smaller vendors aiming at a leader. Two scheduling tools aimed at Calendly ("Best Calendly Alternative"). A time-clock vendor aimed at QuickBooks Time with a headline about its rival's 25% price increase. The big names did the opposite. None of HubSpot, Salesforce, monday.com, Asana, Gusto, ADP or Paychex named a rival in the ads we read.
Many more ads used switching language without naming anyone. Fifty-two ads from 24 companies said "switch," "alternative," "vs" or "compare," and more than half of them named nobody: "Switch to Gusto," "Make The Switch To ADP."
That's the realistic picture for a smaller software company. The leaders don't fight on names. The challengers do, and the most common way is a campaign on the leader's "alternative" searches with ads that say why buyers switch.
11 of 12 Software Sites We Checked Have Comparison Pages. A Rival-Name Click Belongs on One, Never the Home Page.
A buyer who searched "calendly alternative" wants to know one thing: how is this different from Calendly? A home page doesn't answer that. A comparison page does.
The sample software companies know it. Eleven of the twelve had dedicated "vs" or "alternative" pages, and the twelfth had 13 comparison blog posts instead. The counts ranged from 3 dedicated pages to 84 English pages for one scheduling vendor, 54 of them "[competitor] alternative" pages. Eight of the twelve linked their comparison pages from the main navigation or footer.
Build one page per rival you bid on. Each one should cover:
- Who each product suits. Buyers in Chapter 11 compared two products, not ten. Help them decide between these two.
- A side-by-side table of the features buyers ask about, prices with their conditions (Chapter 8) and setup time.
- How switching works. Data import, contract terms, what happens to the old account.
- A next step. The trial or the demo, with the same tracking from Chapter 1.
Point the competitor ad group at its matching page. A click on "copper crm alternative" lands on your Copper comparison, not on a generic page that never mentions Copper.
A Comparison Page That Only Praises You Reads Like an Ad. Say Where the Rival Is Stronger, Too.
Buyers comparing software have read plenty of comparison pages that say the author wins every row. They discount them. A page that names where the rival is stronger is more believable on the rows where you win.
There's a legal reason to be careful, too. The Federal Trade Commission's policy on comparative advertising "encourages the naming of, or reference to competitiors [sic], but requires clarity." And courts draw a line between puffery and claims that can be tested. In Oracle v. Rimini Street (2024), the Ninth Circuit treated vague claims of superiority as puffery, but held that a "specific and measurable" claim can be false advertising. "Easier to use" is opinion. "Half the price" or "twice as fast to set up" is a claim you need to be able to prove.
Three habits keep a comparison page honest:
- Date every price and feature claim about the rival, and check them quarterly. Rivals change plans, and an outdated row is a false claim.
- Give the rival its real strengths. If they integrate with more tools or serve bigger companies, say so.
- Watch what you borrow. Review sites set their own rules; Capterra's current content policy, for example, says you "may not quote or excerpt review comments made about any other provider." Read the terms before you quote anything about a rival from a review site.
Rival-Name Campaigns Win Few Impressions and Fewer Leads. Judge Them on Qualified Leads per Dollar, Over Months.
Expect a slow start. One of our own account reviews explained why: you usually can't put competitor names in the ad copy, "so that usually leaves you with lower quality scores." On one software account we reviewed, the competitor campaign struggled to get impressions and needed its bids raised. Its cost per click, though, was "actually more attractive" than on the generic keywords. About $200 in, it was too early to judge either way.
That's the honest shape of these campaigns: few impressions, bid estimates that look expensive, a handful of clicks and an occasional buyer who was already halfway out the door with a rival. A few rules for running them:
- Keep them separate. As another of our account reviews put it, "if you're going to focus on competitors, they should be separate." Their numbers never mix with category or brand.
- Start late. After the exact match category campaign is profitable (Chapters 6 and 7) and the comparison pages exist.
- Judge on qualified leads from the CRM per dollar, over several months, since the volume is too small to read in weeks.
- Expect retaliation. The same review warned that competitor bidding "could actually trigger a bidding war." A rival you bid on may bid on you. Keep the brand campaign from Chapter 12 funded.
In the Reddit threads we read, none of the 18 founders, in-house marketers and agency practitioners who started a thread about paid ads asked about bidding on a competitor's name. That's not a reason to skip it. It's a reason to treat it as a test, sized like one.
If, after several months, the campaign brings qualified leads at a cost Chapter 3's payback math accepts, add the next rival and its page. If it doesn't, pause it and keep the comparison pages, which still help buyers who arrive from search results.
Next: A Free Trial and a Booked Demo Are Different Sales. Track, Value and Bid on Each One Separately.
Comparison pages often end in one of two buttons: start a trial or book a demo. Chapter 15 covers why those two buttons are different sales, and how to track, value and bid on each.
Every chapter, from tracking to brand campaigns, competitor campaigns and the rules for free trials, is on the guide's home page. Chapter 13 covers AI Max.
For software clients in our Google Ads management work, a competitor campaign starts with one rival, one comparison page and a capped budget. Pick the rival your customers most often say they switched from, and write that page first.
