How to Use PPC Competitive Intelligence to Outdo Your Competitors

PPC is one of the most challenging forms of advertising. Unlike other forms of marketing, in PPC the competition is neck to-neck and only the best will succeed. So, how do you stand out in this competition?

You need to research your competitors; they are everywhere. Not just start-ups, but you are pitted against enterprise businesses that have been in the game longer. Keep track of your competitors’ performances and compare them with yours. Your research will help you determine what you lack and work on your existing strategies to enhance your advertising campaigns.

In this blog post, we will discuss PPC competitive intelligence and how this will help with your advertising efforts.

1. Identify your competitors and make use of Auction Insights

If you observe closely, PPC advertising is similar to a war. The first step is to know who you are at war with. When you identify your competitors, you can analyze their strategies and work on strategies to beat them.

Within your AdWords account, you can identify the businesses against which you will be bidding your keywords. Look into Auction Insights for the URLs of these companies. Apply these insights within your PPC intelligence tool and track your competitors’ details such as:

• Ads

• Keywords, and

• Landing pages.

You can even simply enter your site’s URL and identify your competitors to understand what is awaiting you. There are also third party tools that can help you identify and analyze your PPC competitors. The list of your competitors will be shocking as there will be more than just the two or three advertisers that you thought you were up against.

Now, you can focus on preparing a strategy that outperforms your competitors’ strategies using competitive PPC intelligence.

2. Perform keyword research

Once you identify your competitors, you can track their priority keywords. Use these when you set up your campaigns. Also, you need to conduct research to identify keywords and ad groups for your ad campaigns.

During your research, you might not have identified all the important keywords. There are tools, such as the Google keyword planner, that will help you identify the important keywords similar to the ones that are being used currently.

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Check if any of your competitors are ranking for those terms.

3. Compare your ad copy to the competition.

When you research and identify your competitors, you’ll be able to gather a lot of data, regarding their keywords, ad copies, etc. Use these details to your advantage. Just by looking at your competitors’ ad copies, you can understand a number of aspects, such as ad formats and extensions.

Reviewing the extensions could be helpful as these might be contributing to enhancing their ads’ performance when compared with yours.

You can use all these details to write better ad copies and even create ad extensions that are better. You can experiment with new ad formats as well.

4. Write better ad copies

As we discussed in the previous point, closely monitoring your competitors’ ads will help you write better ad copies. Remember, your aim is not to come up with something similar to your competitors’ ads but something better to attract attention and clicks.

With PPC intelligence, you can write ads that will outperform your competitors’ ads.

Research your competitors and study their ad copy closely; this will help you write better ads.

5. Find out where your competitors are advertising

Once you identify your competitors, their keywords, and the type of ads they write, look for places where their ads appear. You can use a tool like WhatRunsWhere to find out which other platforms your competitors are advertising in. You might already be publishing on various platforms. But looking in places where your competitors are advertising will help you improve your options.

For example, if you haven’t thought of a social media campaign but your competitor is doing that and grabbing attention, you might have uncovered a new area to experiment with your ad.

6. Review and optimize your landing pages based on competitors’ analysis.

Next comes your landing page, which is a crucial part of your PPC campaign. You can save yourself embarrassment and money by reducing bounce rates with a strategically designed landing page that brings engagement.

For that, take a close look at your competitors’ landing pages. Again, you can identify those areas where you need to be focused to attract your users’ attention. Do not copy or create a landing page similar to your competitors’ pages. You can use your insights to create content that your target audience might be interested in.

7. Highlight your USP

Your USP is what distinguishes your brand in the market. Your USP must reflect something that no one else can offer. Take a look at your competitors’ USPs to understand what your customers like and what they are offering (that you are not). These could include anything, like business hours, free shipping, other customized options, etc.

8. Run sales and discounts

Your competitors might be implementing various tactics to attract attention and engage audiences. Besides their pricing, you need to keep an eye out for all the discounts and sales that they are running.

Create an offer that your people cannot resist (it should be something that your competitors are not offering). You can track your competitors’ promotions by signing up for their email lists.

Recommended Reading:

• 8 Ways How PPC Automation Can Help Your Business

Conclusion

Once you know who your competitors are, it would be easy to create ad campaigns that outperform their campaigns. But you need to implement PPC competitive intelligence every now and then to track and identify new competitors in the industry.

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About Seattle New Media

Seattle New Media is a pay-per-click agency that can help you create and manage ad campaigns that will put your website at the top of the search results and help you achieve your marketing goals, all within your budget. Contact us today for a free consultation!

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