Reported US consumer losses to business and government impersonation in 2023, more than three times the 2020 figure. The federal Impersonation Rule has been in force since April 1, 2024.
Source: FTC press release, 1 April 2024Top-ranking brand-protection provider pages that show a sample alert or a sample monthly report. Every one of them names both. Ours are on this page.
Source: STM review of 12 provider pages, August 2026Provider pages that blur monitoring with removal (“take down,” “stop,” “eliminate”) when the mechanism, wherever it is stated, is a complaint the owner files. Those six are also the six that publish no price.
Source: Same reviewWhat’s included
In its first four days live, this system logged 56 advertisers paying to show up on one client’s brand searches, including a storefront advertising the client’s own product listing. Monitoring is the difference between finding out within days and finding out from a customer. What it is not is enforcement. We watch, verify, document and tell you. We do not file takedowns, send legal demands or represent you, and we are not a law firm. You act, or your attorney does, on the file we hand you. The rest of this page shows what that file looks like.
Focus areas · AI services
Four-surface daily sweeps
Google, Bing/DuckDuckGo, Amazon and Walmart. The search shelf and the retail shelf, watched as one job.
Change-only alerts
A new advertiser on your terms triggers an email. No email means clean. We don’t send daily noise to look busy.
Evidence on every alert
Advertiser, search term, ad copy, destination and date, captured the moment we find it, not pieced together later.
Competitor & reseller watchlists
The names you’re watching for, flagged by name the moment they appear instead of buried in a list.
Owned-listing allowlist
Your own ads and listings are filtered out up front, so every alert means something.
Same-day escalation
If an advertiser breaks a rule you’ve set, like a reseller ban on paid search ads or a trademark term, you hear from us that day.
Dated evidence log
Every sweep archived with first-seen and last-seen dates per advertiser. That’s the file an enforcement conversation needs.
Monthly rollup
Who appeared, who stayed, who left, folded into the monthly report you already get. See a sample rollup →
What an alert looks like
Across the twelve top-ranking brand-protection pages we reviewed, none shows the alert a customer receives and none shows the monthly report, though every one of them names both. Here is ours, drawn for a fictional outfitter. The part worth reading is the triage box. It says which door the finding goes through and who walks through it, because that is the part nobody prints.
New advertiser on “pelican point outfitters” — Bing · 1 new, 3 unchanged
Shop the full Pelican Point range with free shipping. Authorized dealer pricing on waders, jackets and packs.
| Term | “pelican point outfitters” · exact brand term · US national + Wilmington + Charleston |
|---|---|
| Surface | Bing / DuckDuckGo · top-of-page sponsored slot 1 |
| First seen | 12 Aug 2026, 06:52 sweep. Not present in any of the previous 41 sweeps. |
| Ad copy | Brand name in the headline (highlighted above); “authorized dealer” in the description |
| Destination | A third-party storefront, not on your allowlist. Not on your reseller list either. |
| Evidence captured | Full-page capture, ad text, final URL, timestamp. Filed to your evidence log as entry #0417. |
- Which doorYour registered mark is in the ad text and the ad claims authorized-dealer status. That is the part a search engine’s trademark policy will act on. Bidding on the keyword alone would not be, and Google says so in writing. This one is actionable.
- Who actsYou, as the trademark owner, or your attorney. We have drafted the complaint wording and attached the evidence; the filing goes in your name. Nothing has been sent.
- Our recommendationEscalated same day under your reseller rule: “authorized dealer” claim plus not on the reseller list. Reply to this email and we’ll walk you through the two forms. If it turns out they are a reseller you forgot to tell us about, add them to the list and this becomes a non-event.
| Advertiser | Surface | Since | Classification |
|---|---|---|---|
| outdoorsupply.example | Google · slot 2 | 3 Jul | Keyword only · no mark in ad · not restrictable |
| Marsh & Tide Co. | Amazon · sponsored products | 18 Jul | Listed reseller · policy-compliant · no action |
| A generic gear comparison site | Google · slot 3 | 22 Jul | Informational landing page · a policy carve-out · watch only |
- Change-only. No new advertiser, no email. The three unchanged entries stay in the log with first-seen and last-seen dates. They don’t generate noise to look busy.
- The mark, highlighted. The one thing a search engine’s trademark policy restricts is a trademark in the ad, headline or description, on the owner’s complaint, per advertiser by URL. Bidding on the term as a keyword is explicitly not restricted (Google Ads Trademarks policy, retrieved Aug 2026). The alert says which one you are looking at.
- Triage says who acts. Never us. The complaint wording is drafted and the evidence attached so you can paste and submit. You stay the person making the statement, because it is your right and your good-faith judgment.
- The compliant reseller. One of the unchanged advertisers is a reseller you told us about, doing nothing wrong. It stays in the log, because a report that only ever finds villains is a sales document, not a monitoring one.
Where our job ends, drawn out
Six of the twelve provider pages we reviewed lead with “take down,” “stop” or “remove” and describe how, if at all, in a checkout footnote or the fourteenth FAQ. The mechanism is always the same: a complaint the trademark owner files, which a platform decides. Nobody in the set draws where their responsibility stops. Here is ours.
Four surfaces swept every day on your brand terms, with your own listings and known resellers filtered out up front.
Every new advertiser is checked by a person before it reaches you: who they are, what the ad claims, which door it goes through.
Same-day alert with evidence attached and complaint wording drafted. Everything logged with dates. A monthly rollup.
Most findings. A competitor bidding on your keyword is legal and common. The answer is usually a bidding decision, not a filing.
The platform’s own trademark or impersonation form, in your name, with our evidence pack and drafted text pasted in. Usually free.
Cease-and-desist, marketplace escalation, a domain dispute, litigation. We hand over the dated log. The rest is theirs.
| Us | You | Your attorney | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Watch the four surfaces daily | ✓ | — | — |
| Verify each new advertiser | ✓ | — | — |
| Capture and date the evidence | ✓ | — | — |
| Draft the complaint wording | ✓ | — | sometimes |
| Decide whether to act | — | ✓ | advises |
| Submit the complaint, sign the statement | — | ✓ | on your behalf |
| Send a legal demand or file suit | — | — | ✓ |
| Keep the evidence log if we part ways | — | ✓ | — |
- The double bar is the point. Everything left of it is included in the fee. Everything right of it is your decision, or your attorney’s, and we don’t pretend otherwise. We are not a law firm, and the enterprise vendors who charge legal-department prices end up at the same bar. One of them, in its own FAQ, says it “does not handle legal action directly” and refers clients to attorneys.
- Why we don’t push the button. The statute behind copyright takedowns lets “a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner” send the notice, no lawyer required, so we could. It also makes anyone who “knowingly materially misrepresents” an infringement liable for the damage (17 U.S.C. §512(f)). The good-faith call is the rights holder’s to make, so the rights holder makes it.
- “Sometimes,” “advises,” “on your behalf.” An attorney can file the platform forms for you and can draft their own wording. What they add is judgment and legal standing. What we add is the daily watching and a dated file that is ready before you need it.
- Row eight. Two of twelve provider pages publish exit terms; zero say who keeps the evidence. Yours exports with you.
What we watch, and what we don’t
Every provider page we reviewed names the surfaces it covers. Four of twelve say what they leave out. That’s the column that matters, so here it is first.
Not in scope, and we’ll say so
- Organic search results. A stale listing outranking you on your own name is real and painful, and it is not an ad. It’s on our roadmap, not on today’s sweep.
- Social profiles, domains and lookalike sites. Fake pages and typo-domains are impersonation and trademark problems that go through platform forms, the FTC’s ReportFraud channel or a domain dispute. We’ll tell you which, but we don’t crawl for them.
- Marketplace listings as such. We watch who is advertising on Amazon and Walmart on your terms. We don’t police every listing or every reseller. If someone bought your product legitimately, reselling it is legal, and no monitoring service changes that.
- Trademark registers. Watching the USPTO for conflicting applications is a different service, sold by attorneys and docketing tools for $30–$99 a month. Worth having if you hold a mark. Not this.
- Dark web, app stores, physical goods. Enterprise territory, priced accordingly, and rarely where a $1M–$10M business is being hurt.
In scope, daily
- Google and Bing/DuckDuckGo: every sponsored slot on your brand terms, national plus two metros, with the ad text captured so you can see whether your mark is in it.
- Amazon and Walmart sponsored placements: who is paying to appear when your product is searched by name, with the seller identified during triage.
- Your watchlists: competitors and resellers flagged by name the moment they appear, and your own listings filtered out so every alert means something.
- The evidence log: every sweep archived, first-seen and last-seen per advertiser, exportable, yours.
- The classification: keyword-only vs. mark-in-ad, listed reseller vs. unknown storefront, policy carve-out vs. actionable, so the file is ready for whichever door you choose.
Where it starts
$249/monthFlat monitoring feeThe sweeps, our review of everything flagged, the alerts, the evidence log and the monthly rollup. Included in Full Stack plans; add it to any other plan for $200/month.
How pricing worksWhich door does your problem go through?
That is copyright, and it is the one case a DMCA notice was built for. The owner or “a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner” can send it, no attorney required, and it costs nothing. A useful side note: counterfeit listings almost always steal the brand’s own product photography, so a copyright notice on the images is often the fastest lever even when the underlying problem is trademark.
Trademark, but the door is the search engine’s own policy, not a statute. Google’s trademarks policy restricts a trademark in an ad from a direct competitor, on the trademark owner’s complaint, per advertiser by URL. That is what our alerts flag first, and it is a free form.
Google will not restrict it, and says so in writing. This is not an enforcement problem. It’s a cost problem: someone else bidding on your name (a brand sniper) raises what you pay for your own brand searches, and the fix is usually a small defensive campaign that runs only while they’re there. That is a paid media conversation, and the monitor is the trigger.
Trademark plus the platform’s impersonation policy, and, since April 1, 2024, a federal rule against impersonating a business, with a free FTC reporting channel that does not require you to own a registered mark. It’s not a DMCA case. A notice sent under the wrong statute can create liability for the sender.
If they bought it legitimately, reselling it is legal (the first-sale doctrine), and no service can change that. What sticks is the exception: the unit is materially different (expired, repackaged, no warranty), the seller claims to be authorized, or it is a counterfeit. That is what a monitoring file should document. Enrolling in Amazon Brand Registry is free, needs a registered or pending mark, and must be done by the trademark owner. The verification code goes to the contact on your trademark record, so nobody can do it for you.
None of these doors is one we walk through for you. Our job is that when you reach one, the evidence is already dated, the wording is already drafted, and you know which door it is. Sources: 17 U.S.C. §512(c)(3)(A) and §512(f); Google Ads Trademarks policy; USPTO “Why register your trademark?”; Amazon Brand Registry eligibility (Aug 2025); FTC Impersonation Rule release, 1 April 2024, all retrieved August 2026. None of this is legal advice. When a finding matters, ask your attorney and hand them the file.
How pricing works
One flat fee, no contract. The established enterprise service in this category runs $799–$1,500+/month on an annual commitment, without watching Amazon or Walmart at all. Most of what you might do with a finding (a Brand Registry enrollment, a Google trademark complaint, an FTC report) costs nothing to file. What costs money is knowing, every day, that it needs filing.
The sweeps, our review of everything flagged, the alerts, the evidence log and the monthly rollup. Included in Full Stack plans; add it to any other plan for $200/month.
Brand-term scoping, competitor and reseller watchlists, owned-listing allowlist, alert wiring and the baseline sweep. Waived when the service comes inside a bundle.
The standard fence is about eight brand terms, four surfaces, national plus two metros, daily. More terms, more markets or more marketplaces are priced by the block and quoted in writing. Search volume is what drives the cost, and we’ll tell you where the fence is before you cross it.
Bundling is cheaper than buying the pieces.
See plans & pricingHow long it takes
What to expect
Live in a week, useful from then on.
Terms, watchlists and allowlist confirmed with you. The baseline sweep maps who’s already on your name before day one.
Daily sweeps, change-only alerts. Ads rotate, so new advertisers surface within days. Anyone running consistently can’t hide.
Seller identified, evidence pack assembled, options laid out. You decide the response. Filings go in your name, and we prepare everything behind them.
Who we help
If customers search your name before they buy, someone can bid on it. Where this earns its keep:
E-commerce & DTC
Marketplace sellers, gray-market storefronts and affiliates jumping on your product terms.
Explore →Hospitality & resorts
Booking sites and competitors bidding on your property name. Every booking they intercept costs you the commission or the guest.
Explore →Brands with resellers
A ban on resellers running paid search ads only works if somebody’s watching. This is the tripwire, with dated proof either way.
Anyone running paid media
Other people bidding on your name drive up what you pay for your own brand searches. Monitoring is how you find out who, and make it stop.
When you win, we win
From the first live engagement: 56 advertisers detected paying to appear on one client’s brand searches, in the first four days.
Outbidding the category leader — at a 5.9× return
2023 – 2026
A 599% return in a category Google restricts
2023 – present
Thirteen years of showing up with the numbers
2013 – present
Don’t take our word for it
“The Southern Tide Media team has smartly positioned itself as partners, versus “vendors.” Each step along the strategic path, I feel as if they are “all in” and have our best interests at heart.”
“Southern Tide Media increased our conversion rates on our SEO campaigns by 60% in short time… Brandon takes the worry out of all the technical jargon and translates that into workable applications you can understand as a business owner.”
“In every dealing I have ever had with Brandon Evans, he has been knowledgeable, fair, and has responded quickly. I would highly recommend using him for any of your business’s marketing or advertising needs!”
Questions, answered
Will you catch every ad ever run on our name?
No, and nobody can promise that. Ads rotate, so daily snapshots catch new advertisers within days rather than minutes. Anyone running consistently cannot hide. It’s the same sampling approach the enterprise tools use, at a saner price.
What happens when you find something?
You get an email with the evidence already attached: advertiser, term, ad copy, destination, date. Anything that breaks a rule you’ve set (a reseller violating a paid-search ban, a trademark term in an ad) escalates the same day. Then the decision is yours. We never file anything in your name without you.
Is this trademark enforcement?
It’s the evidence half, which is the half you can’t reconstruct after the fact. If you decide to pursue a takedown, the ad platforms and marketplaces all have complaint channels. We prepare the evidence pack, and the filing goes in your name.
What do we need to give you?
Three lists: your brand terms, your own listings and storefronts (so your ads never trigger alerts), and the competitors or resellers you want watched by name. After that, a heads-up whenever a new name should join the watchlist.
Can you tell who’s behind an Amazon ad?
Amazon shows the product, not the seller. So detection is instant, and figuring out who the seller is takes a lookup we run as part of triage before anything reaches you.
Which plans include it?
Full Stack and Full Stack + Media include it. On any other plan it’s a $200/month add-on, or $249/month on its own.
Can you file the takedowns for me?
No, and here is the reason. The copyright statute lets “a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner” send a notice, so a monitoring vendor could. The same statute makes anyone who “knowingly materially misrepresents” an infringement liable for the damage it causes (17 U.S.C. §512(f)), and every platform’s trademark and impersonation form asks the person submitting it to state that they are the rights holder or authorized by them. The judgment about whether something is infringing is yours to make, in good faith, on your own rights. So you make it, and you sign it. What we do is make that a five-minute job: evidence dated and attached, wording drafted, the right form identified. We are not a law firm, and we won’t sell you enforcement dressed up as monitoring.
Who is legally allowed to send a DMCA takedown notice?
The owner of the copyright, or “a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner.” That is the statutory language (17 U.S.C. §512(c)(3)(A)), and it sets no professional qualification: no attorney is required. Two things the category routinely gets wrong: the penalty-of-perjury statement in a notice attaches to being authorized, not to the infringement claim (that part is a “good faith belief”); and the DMCA only covers copyright. Which leads to the next question.