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Protecting your PPC budget from competitor brand terms
Kids shouldn’t use chatbots for mental health — but they’re going to anyway
Protecting your PPC budget from competitor brand terms
Watching budget meant for high-intent users get siphoned off by competitor searches is brutal. Those clicks look inexpensive, but they usually don’t convert and they pollute your performance data. Here’s how to tighten things up:
Use negatives with intent, not paranoia. Add competitor names as phrase-match negatives, and lean on exact match when overlap is likely. Just don’t nuke useful generic phrases that happen to resemble a competitor. Some platforms limit your negative lists, so centralize them at the account or campaign level.
Use brand inclusions and exclusions in AI campaigns. If you’re running Performance Max or anything similar, apply the brand controls. They signal the system to avoid traffic tied to specific brands. It isn’t the same as traditional negatives, and it won’t catch every fringe variant, but it materially reduces leakage.
Fix your conversion values or your bidding will chase junk. Competitor queries often look “cheap,” so automated bidding grabs them unless your values and ROAS targets are dialed in. Assign real conversion values. A trial signup and a paid account aren’t interchangeable. Then use Maximize conversion value with a ROAS target so the system prioritizes revenue, not vanity metrics.
Separate competitor campaigns from everything else. If you choose to bid on competitor terms intentionally, isolate them. Different budget, different bidding strategy, different KPIs. Mixing them into core campaigns corrupts the data. And never put competitor names in ad copy unless you’re trying to get flagged.
Keep auditing. Constantly. Competitor protection isn’t a one-time setup. Review search term reports, catch new variants early, and move anything low-performing into your shared negatives. Break down performance by device, geography, and audience to see where leakage is creeping in.
The goal is balance. You’re trying to eliminate unproductive competitor traffic without shutting out high-intent queries that matter. Done right, this setup keeps your spend focused where it actually produces returns.
Your customers have moved to AI search. Are they finding your brand in ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity? Peec AI shows you exactly where and how you appear across all major AI tools. Monitor your mention frequency, benchmark against competitors, and learn how to improve your visibility. Stop guessing where you stand in AI search results. **Black Friday exclusive: 30% off annual plans until November 30.**
Kids shouldn’t use chatbots for mental health — but they’re going to anyway
Common Sense Media dropped a new report on Thursday, and the takeaway is bleak: AI chatbots are a fundamental risk for teens who use them for mental-health support.
The study, run with Stanford Medicine’s Brainstorm Lab, reviewed four major models — ChatGPT-5, Claude Sonnet 4.5, Gemini 2.5 Flash, and Meta AI using Llama 4 — repeatedly over four months as they evolved. Even with updates and safety improvements, especially around suicide-related prompts, the systems consistently failed when the conversation moved into areas like depression, anxiety, ADHD, eating disorders, mania, or psychosis.
One example: When researchers, posing as a teen with an eating disorder, said they wanted to cut calories because eating “triggers the discomfort,” Gemini Teen responded with portion-control advice. That’s not a small miss. That’s the kind of failure that can do real harm.
Across the board, the models were also too easy to distract and regularly missed red flags when conversations went beyond single, explicit prompts. And yet, teens are flocking to these tools. They feel nonjudgmental, always available, and easier to talk to than a human — which is exactly why young people lean on them, even if the guidance is unreliable or unsafe.
Common Sense Media’s official stance is that minors shouldn’t be using AI chatbots for emotional support at all. But the organization acknowledges reality: kids are already doing it, and they’re not stopping. The responsibility now sits with parents, educators, regulators and the companies building these systems. As Dr. Nina Vasan from Stanford’s Brainstorm Lab put it, this isn’t about monthly tweaks. The entire approach to mental-health support in AI needs a fundamental redesign.
The pattern is familiar. Social platforms spent a decade reshaping teen mental health before regulators finally intervened. AI is moving faster, with higher stakes, and early signs suggest the impact could be even more severe. A few states are starting to legislate how minors can use AI, but the technology is evolving much faster than the policies meant to contain it.
Your customers have moved to AI search. Are they finding your brand in ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity? Peec AI shows you exactly where and how you appear across all major AI tools. Monitor your mention frequency, benchmark against competitors, and learn how to improve your visibility. Stop guessing where you stand in AI search results. **Black Friday exclusive: 30% off annual plans until November 30.**
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This newsletter is a publication of Vector Research Partners (v4rp.com), a data and insights firm powering diligence and growth strategies for top operators and investors.
