Some businesses have used Google AdWords to great effect during the World Cup. How can we do the same for future events of this scale?

Major sporting events present numerous piggybacking opportunities in paid search, as Google allows companies to bid on competitor and big brand names.

Ian Howie is the co-founder and chief technology officer at search agency 1updigital.com. He says retailers could have done more to benefit from clever World Cup themed keywords.

For example, he points out Amazon was quick to bid on the search term Vuvuzela, but appeared to have been the only major retailer to do so.

Tesco bid on the Bavaria brand term after the Dutch beer company ran a stunt with 36 blondes in Orange mini-dresses at the Holland-Denmark game and the brand’s website rocketed to being the fifth most visited beer website in the UK.

“Where were the Waitrose ads for South African inspired food? Didn’t several retailers come up with some special World Cup-inspired barbecue food? Why weren’t they bidding on keywords like biltong and boerewors?” he asks, pointing out that other retailers could have made much better use of online interest in the World Cup and South Africa.

Howie adds: “When you are piggybacking on major events, think wide and deep. Start by bidding on the event name, then build out to include sponsors’ brand names.”

He advises: “There are some Google tools that can help you find the keywords that are getting the most searches. Use Google trends to see how often keywords have been searched on over time, and Hitwise, which can tell you top performing brands and websites.”