12 questions to ask a brand search monitoring vendor before you buy

Key takeaways

• Ask for a worked usage calculation for your own configuration, not a generic plan sheet.

• Make each vendor show a failed check next to a check where no ads appeared.

• Get the denominator of every visibility metric in plain language.

• Open a sample export before you sign, and write the exit process into the contract.

The 12 questions below turn a sales conversation into acceptance criteria you can check during a trial.

How we wrote this. Ads Lighthouse publishes this checklist as a vendor in the category, and these are questions buyers should ask us too. At the end we answer several of them for our own product. They do not assume every team needs every capability; an explicit limit is easier to plan around than a vague promise.

The 12 questions at a glance

1. What exactly counts as one check?

Ask the vendor to calculate usage for a sample configuration while you watch: several keywords, two locations and both devices. Find out whether each search engine, language or operating system adds another billable unit, and whether retries or manual refreshes use the same allowance as scheduled collection.

2. Which parts of my coverage can you actually collect?

Provide the exact locations and engines you need and ask for a written list of supported combinations and exclusions. "Worldwide coverage" does not tell you whether your purchase includes the city, language, device and ad format that matter to you.

3. What timestamp am I seeing?

Ask the presenter to distinguish observation time from processing time and from the moment someone opened the result. Ask which time zone reports use. A colleague in another region can read the same moment as a different day, which matters for short promotions.

4. How do you display an unsuccessful check?

Request a failed-check example. You need to tell an empty result ("no ads appeared") from a collection failure ("we could not check"). Ask how long incomplete work stays pending, who investigates gaps, and whether the contract offers any remedy for persistent gaps.

5. Which URL are you preserving?

Google describes display URLs, final URLs and tracking templates as different things. Ask which URL fields the vendor exposes, where each came from, whether redirects are saved, and whether reopening a destination fetches a different page from the one observed.

6. What does your visibility metric divide by?

Ask for the denominator in plain language. Is it captured ad results, checks where an advertiser appeared, eligible impressions or a model? Google's impression share is based on your own eligible impressions, which a third-party tool cannot see. Keep each definition beside the report so colleagues do not compare unlike percentages.

7. Can we classify an advertiser without accusing it?

Demonstrate a competitor, an authorized retailer and an unresolved domain. Relationship labels should be separate from findings about particular behavior. Check who can correct a label and how a changed relationship affects past reports, since permission can differ by market or date.

8. Which actions happen automatically?

Trace a new observation through collection, detection, notification and any external response. Ask where approval is required and who can switch automation off. A tool that "supports email" may still need someone to configure the event that sends one; test the whole path.

9. Who can access each brand's information?

Test with a user who should not see another project's data. Include direct links and exports, not only navigation. Establish account ownership, user removal and client access limits. Agencies should make this a demonstrated requirement before inviting unrelated clients.

10. What can we take with us when we leave?

Request a sample export and open it before signing. Check that it contains original timestamps, query context, domains and identifiers. Ask about retention after cancellation, export charges and whether screenshots need a separate retrieval. Write the exit process into the contract.

11. What changes the monthly cost?

Price your normal configuration and a busy month. Include extra brands, manual checks, higher frequency, users and service work. Ask what happens at a limit: collection stopping, a queued request and an overage charge are very different outcomes.

12. What will prove the trial succeeded?

Agree practical tasks before the trial starts, including one uncertain finding and one correction. Name the reviewers and the decision date. End with a list of demonstrated capabilities and unresolved requirements, and ask the vendor to confirm it in writing.

How Ads Lighthouse answers some of these

In the spirit of this checklist, here is how our own product answers several questions today.

• Question 1: one check is one keyword × location × device × selected source (Google Search, Google Shopping or Bing). Scheduled runs use a monthly scheduled allowance; the first project collection and manual checks use a separate realtime allowance.

• Question 3: each observation keeps its exact time, and the app shows it in the time zone each user chooses (New York time by default).

• Question 5: we keep the destination URL observed in the ad, including any tracking parameters present, and a landing page capture where one is available.

• Question 6: visibility is the share of captures in your current selection where a domain showed an ad. It describes that sample, not impression share.

• Question 7: you label advertisers yourself, and affiliate IDs found in URLs are shown as markers to review, not as conclusions.

• Question 8: Ads Lighthouse does not send complaints, partner emails or bid changes. Its alerts cover new or returning advertisers, brand mentions in ad copy and your affiliate IDs, delivered by email, Slack or webhook, and the first check of each project is a baseline that sends no new-advertiser alerts.

• Question 9: members of an account share all of its projects; there are no per-project permissions.

• Question 11: plans have fixed monthly prices from $49 (Starter) to $599 (Business), with Enterprise by agreement. The app compares your configuration with the plan before you save it, and a check that would exceed your allowance is refused rather than billed as an overage.

The details of every plan are on pricing, and the help center explains scheduled and on-demand checks, exports and team roles. The product page shows the workflow, the brand protection use case shows a typical review, coverage per engine is on the Google Ads and Bing Ads pages, and our comparison pages, such as Ads Lighthouse vs BrandVerity, summarize how other vendors answer. Terms are defined in the glossary. You can sign up for free and start a 7-day trial.

Related reading

• A brand-search monitoring vendor scorecard for your next demo

• A two-week proof of concept for brand-search monitoring

• How to compare brand-monitoring pricing using the coverage you need

• 6 brand bidding monitoring tools compared