Malte ZanderContents
Brand impersonation ads are paid search ads that use your name to send people to fake login pages, cloned shops or fake support numbers. Find them by searching your brand terms like a customer, on a phone and in each market. Capture the ad together with its landing page, then report it on two tracks: as a policy violation through the platform's ad report form and as a trademark issue through its trademark complaint form.
- In 2025, Google blocked or removed 8.3 billion ads and suspended 24.9 million advertiser accounts. 602 million of the removed ads were scam-related (Search Engine Land).
- Google's EU edition of its 2025 Ads Safety Report lists 1.6 billion ads removed and 2 million advertiser accounts suspended, with trademark and misrepresentation among the top five violation categories (Google).
- Google takes reports of inappropriate ads through its Report an ad or listing form and trademark violations through a separate trademark complaint form (Google Ads).
How do fake brand ads work?
They buy the moment someone searches for you. The ad shows your brand name, sometimes with a displayed address that looks like yours, and sits above your real result.
Behind the click waits one of three things: a copy of your login page, a cloned shop with prices that are too good, or a support hotline run by scammers. See fake support pages.
Two tricks make these ads hard to catch. They often show a harmless page to reviewers and the fake only to targets, and the accounts behind them rotate quickly. See hidden fakes.
How do you find fake ads that use your brand?
By searching for yourself the way customers do, regularly and where your customers are:
Search your brand plus intent words: login, support, phone number, download, discount, sale.
Search on mobile and desktop, logged out, with location settings for each market you serve.
Search at different times, including evenings and weekends, when review teams are thinner.
Check who the advertiser is, using the ad information the platform shows.
Ask support and sales whether customers mention ads, phone numbers or shops you don't recognize.
Watch new lookalike domains, because many end up as landing pages for ads.
What evidence do you need?
Enough for a reviewer to see the ad, where it leads and why it infringes, without searching themselves:
A screenshot of the results page showing the ad, with search term, date, time, location and device.
The ad text and the displayed address, exactly as shown.
The landing page: final URL and screenshots, opened in an isolated browser profile.
The advertiser name from the ad information.
Your trademark details: registration number, office and classes, for the trademark complaint.
How do you report fake ads to Google?
On two tracks, plus the landing page:
Policy track: report the ad through the Report an ad or listing form. Google looks into the report and acts on the ad if appropriate (Google Ads).
Trademark track: if your trademark appears in the ad, file the trademark complaint form. Google acts on the ad if it finds the advertiser in violation of its trademark policies (Google Ads).
Landing page: report it to Google Safe Browsing and to host and registrar like any phishing site. Once the page is gone, every ad that points to it leads nowhere. See How to report a phishing website in Europe.
How do you report fake ads to Microsoft Advertising?
Microsoft Advertising has an ad quality escalation form for low quality or infringing ads on its properties and network. Intellectual property complaints, such as trademark misuse, go through a separate form linked from the same page (Microsoft Advertising).
For ads on social networks, use the platform's ad report and its intellectual property form. Platforms that host content in the EU must also accept notices under Article 16 of the Digital Services Act (DSA).
How do you stop the same fake ad from coming back?
Treat ads as the visible end of a campaign and work on the parts behind them:
Report patterns, not single ads: the same landing domain, the same text, the same phone number.
Take down the landing domains, so new ads have nowhere to send people.
Check daily while a campaign is active.
Keep your own result visible for brand searches, so a fake ad never stands alone at the top.
Register your trademark in the markets where you advertise, because trademark complaints depend on it. See trademark rights and takedowns.
Request a demo to see how AI Fraud Protect takes landing pages offline through host, registrar and Google at once.
FAQ
Is it legal for others to bid on my brand name?
It depends on the platform's policies and local law. Bidding on a brand term alone is often allowed, while impersonation and misleading use of the brand in the ad are not. This is not legal advice.
Do I need a registered trademark to report fake ads?
For a trademark complaint, yes. For scams and impersonation, the policy report works without one.
How quickly does Google remove reported ads?
Google publishes no timeline for individual reports. Its 2025 report says more than 99% of policy-violating ads were stopped before they ran, so the ads you still see are the ones that slipped through.
The ad shows a harmless page when I check it. What now?
The ad may be cloaked. Test the exact ad link on a phone and from the targeted market, and document both versions in your report.