You shouldn’t just blindly jump into the unknown when you are setting up a PPC campaign. Before you can get started, there is much research. The most important thing is to analyze the PPC competition.
You must also focus on your demographic and keywords. Broad search terms can lead to higher cost per acquisition. Broad search terms can lead to two problems.
They are often targeted by businesses that have the resources to target general search terms.
There is always competition when it comes pay-per-click advertising.
There is a good chance that your competitors are competing with you for more than just a few keywords. You can still understand how to win by analyzing your PPC competitors.
This article will show you how to locate these keywords and beat them so that your ads rank higher on Google.
3 Simple Tips to do PPC Competitor Analysis
1. Define competition
Let’s say you want to rank higher in Google for the keyword “accountant (your town)”. There is a lot of competition.
These competitors include established global players. Some are family-owned businesses.
Who are you competing against? Do you want to be ranked above the global accounting firm? Are you more likely to compete with smaller local firms?
It’s not easy to rank higher than a PPC competitor. Every business wants their ads to rank higher.
It is easier to identify your competitors and target your market segment, then you can outrank them.
In some industries, it is easy to identify your competitors. In others, however, you may need to identify where your company is located in the local (or global) market before you attempt to beat a corporation with millions of dollars in PPC advertising campaigns.
Don’t search for keywords on Google, and instead pick the businesses that are closest to you as your PPC competitors.
Some of the search giants offer useful tools for free.
Microsoft Advertising’s competition tab and Google’s Auction Insights can help you to find the competition more effectively.
2. Have a look at the Campaign Budget
Your keywords bids are key to getting on top in paid search results. You’ll need to determine if your competitors bid higher than you. You will find that your ad rank increases the higher you bid.
It is possible that you don’t have the funds to compete with the top paid search ranking players. So what are your options?
You can bid higher for certain campaigns and at specific times. You may have noticed an increase in search volume on Sunday afternoons between 2pm-6pm. You can focus your efforts on this time to increase your bids and target more keywords to improve your conversions.
You can also maximize your budget by halting bidding for high-volume but low-converting search terms. These keywords are generally the broadest match keywords.
Instead, you should focus your efforts on niche search terms that bring in more clicks and converts.
Your search engine ranking will also be affected by other factors, like your quality score. Make sure your landing pages are optimized for your campaigns and your site loads quickly.
3. Analyze what your competitors are doing
This is what most people are focused on when it comes to PPC competitor analysis. It isn’t the most important factor, so it isn’t on the top.
Yup. It’s not as important to analyze how PPC competitors run their ads as it is to focus on your own game. It’s funny.
We’ve seen that not all brands need to be compared. Bigger brands will always win.
Others might use their reputation to increase their ad ranking and even get a larger budget.
Branded keywords can also help campaigns rank higher in Google.
It is a good idea to compare your business with the competitor’s PPC analysis.
This is also covered in the details section of Google Ads or Microsoft Ad drop-down menu.
This will allow you to see how often your PPC competitors have received impressions. This can help you determine if they are worthy rivals.
It also displays the position above rate which indicates how often an advertiser’s ad was shown at a higher rank that yours.
It’s time for you to analyze keywords of your PPC competitor if they seem to be pulling ad rank with you.
Four Great Tools to Analyze PPC Competitors’ Campaigns
1. ClickCease
We are the best-rated click fraud prevention tool for Facebook and Google. AdSpy will notify you about new bids for your keywords, and provide additional insight into your PPC competitor campaigns.
Adspy can be set up to run multiple times per day and notify you whenever a change occurs.
As soon as the ads go live, you’ll be able to view them. This will give you ample time to adjust your ads, bids and strategy.
You’ll also be notified about the ranking of your competitor for the keywords you selected.
Adspy can also analyze your strategy and provide relevant insights to help you beat your PPC competitors.
Adspy also offers a neat feature that allows you to see the average Google position of your ads over the past seven days.
Adspy provides details about PPC competitors who bid on your keyword over the past seven days based on location and device.
You can also see the ads of your competitors in the PPC competitor’s ads section.
It is also possible to see how many times the PPC rival’s ad has been ranked high on Google.
This will allow you to see the keywords used in their title, which can be leveraged to your advantage.
2. SEM Rush
SemRush promises that you will discover the things you haven’t noticed.
SemRush allows you to see where your ads are outperforming in different ways, including keywords.
You can use the keyword gap tool to compare your domain’s keyword collection with those of your closest competitors.
Select the domains of competitors that you wish to analyze, and then choose the keyword type.
SemRush allows you to compare the paid keywords from different domains. You might also discover new keywords to use in your campaign.
You can use their keyword gap analysis to find keywords the domain of your competitor ranks for.
You can also dive into the data to find out more details such as:
See the domains ranking for the keywords you selectedThe keyword volume of each keyword Average cost-per-clickCompetitive densityTotal number of results
SemRush analyzes the PPC campaign strategies of PPC competitors to improve your ad rank.
You can dramatically increase your CPA by reverse engineering all of the data.
3. SpyFu
SpyFu lets you search for any domain to see all the places they have appeared on Google. SpyFu allows you to see every keyword a domain has purchased.
This is a very useful tool that allows you to look at keywords used by your competitors and determine what has worked and what hasn’t.
You can even see their estimated monthly advertising budget and how long they’ve been bidding for certain keywords.
SpyFu’s dashboard has a clear layout and is easy-to-use. This dashboard is a great choice for SEO beginners who don’t have any experience using data and technical tools.
The SpyFu dashboard has a search bar at its top that allows you to enter keywords and domain names.
Results will display and you will be able to see the paid and organic keywords that your competitors rank for.
You can also download and run custom reports about a competitor. This is a great tool to gain an advantage over them.
SpyFu will give you an indication of which keywords bring clicks.
SpyFu gives you data such as:
RankCost-Per-ClickSearch volumeClicks per monthDifficulty
These results will help you to implement a better strategy. You can also sort keywords into:
Keywords ranked newMost valuable keywordsPage 1 keywords Keyword rank gainsKeyword ranking losses
SpyFu recommends topics that a keyword ranks for to help you implement your content strategy efficiently.
4. iSpionage
iSpionage allows you to access SEO and PPC keywords data from Bing and Yahoo.
These search engines will give you the ability to analyze the keyword rankings of your PPC competitors on different search engines. This creates a unique set of results that can be extremely useful for building your search engine strategy.
The Key Takeaways
These tools will help you do keyword research using their various capabilities.
Analyzing data can help you determine how cost-efficient certain keywords can be for you business by identifying the terms and phrases that your competitors are using in ads.
You must ensure that you do not allow other PPC players to take your position!
Notice: Your keyword pool will be larger, which will allow you to reach more of your competitors.
PPC Competitor’s Keywords Cannot Be Beaten by a Effective Strategy
Digital marketing is highly competitive. Your ads will not do well if you only think about copying the keywords and content of your competitor.
It is important to choose keywords that are less expensive per click, and you should use them as long a they improve ad rank or CPA.
Create a keyword ad group for a specific keyword when you have found a keyword that is actionable and has a high volume.
This will result in a higher quality score for your ads by increasing the relevance of your ads.
Dos & Don’ts
If not done correctly, bidding on keywords of competitors could start a bidding battle.
You can save money by using PPC keywords to tune your ad offers.
An offer of a lower price or a discount on your ad can be made. This will increase your exposure and sales.
It is possible to beat them on price and convert customers.
You can bid on keywords of your competitors by starting to bid.
This is called a bidding war, and can be very costly for both of you.
This could endanger your company’s reputation if you don’t take care.
It is a virtue to conduct yourself professionally online.
To rank organically on Google, you should use better copywriting. Your ad should look better than the PPC competitor’s.
Combining keyword optimization with this will help you get more clicks for your ad.
Instead of high-competitive keywords, bid on keywords with lower volumes and less competition.
This allows you to save money and avoid bidding wars with your competitors.
It is a waste of time to write a lot when just a few words will do the trick.
Kevin Malone
Be aware of bounce rates
If you get lots of clicks but low conversions, it can lead to you spending a lot.
While there are many reasons for a low bounce rate, certain keywords can still attract high volumes of traffic. This could be due to people simply browsing, researching, or because search terms with high volumes or high value are easy targets for click fraud.
Avoid broad match keywords to minimize your exposure to low-quality traffic.
Negative keywords will ensure that your ads do not appear for certain search terms.
You must also counter-attack bot traffic. You can find out more about bot traffic and how to stop it in our guide.
The post How to Analyze Competitors PPC campaigns in 2022
