11 Comments
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Ksenia K.'s avatar

Yes, last year we applied this tactic at Spendbase and managed to capture the traffic for [brand + discount] keywords for hundreds of brands. They weren’t competitors though, Spendbase indeed provided partner discounts for SaaS software as a reseller. What’s worth mentioning is that the pages from Spendbase Discount Marketplace sometimes outranked the home pages of lesser known brands, which was ridiculous 😛

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Jo Hughes's avatar

I don't think this demonstrates good integrity and would put me off a brand once I realised what they were doing. Always do good work. This falls short on ethics in my opinion.

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Rocco R.'s avatar

Well, the title already mention "evil" 🤓 what we were expecting 😊

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Pabitra Kumar Roy's avatar

It's this strategy illegal?

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Michael Joseph's avatar

The defensive strategy you mentioned is particularly interesting. We're currently dealing with several third-party coupon sites ranking above our official discount page.

Could you share more specific tactics for outranking these sites? Also, how do you handle the potential negative impact on your brand's search results when multiple competitors target your brand name + discount keywords?

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Jackey Haddix's avatar

While the strategy is clever from a technical SEO perspective, I'm not entirely comfortable with the "ambush" approach. As a consumer, I would feel misled if I clicked on a discount page only to find it's from a competitor.

Would you consider a more transparent approach, like creating honest comparison pages that clearly state they're from a competitor but offer genuine value comparisons? This could maintain effectiveness while being more ethical.

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Jason Jennings's avatar

I've been in digital marketing for 5 years, and this strategy is indeed effective but needs careful implementation. We tried this approach with our SaaS product last year, targeting competitor discount searches.

However, I'm concerned about the long-term impact on brand reputation. Instead of directly competing on discounts, we found more success by creating comparison pages that highlight our unique value propositions. What's your take on balancing aggressive marketing with brand integrity?

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Olivia Martinez Goetz's avatar

Love this but how would you apply this to B2B consulting? this seems more like a product play

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Cheryl.wtf's avatar

Adding this to a future issue of the Title Underground newsletter from Wicked Title Forum! Grateful to keep sharing helpful resources from folks who get it.

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Ashlesha Kanoje's avatar

But dosen't it affect the SEO? It is a good strategy but just concerned from SEO pov how it will perform plus after crawler is understanding how the page is performing it may de rank that page

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Manuel's avatar

As always, such a great tip again. Have a wonderful weekend, dear Tom!

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