Introduction
PPC (pay-per-click) advertising is a powerful way to reach your target audience and drive traffic to your website. But PPC marketing can also be challenging, especially when you have to compete with other advertisers who are targeting the same keywords and audience as you.
That’s why it’s important to do a PPC competitive analysis, which is the process of researching and analysing your competitors’ PPC strategies, keywords, ads, and performance. By doing a PPC competitive analysis, you can:
- Identify your main PPC competitors and their strengths and weaknesses
- Discover new keyword opportunities and gaps in your keyword strategy
- Learn from your competitors’ ad copy and landing pages and improve your own
- Find out how much your competitors are spending on PPC and how well they are performing
- Gain a competitive edge and optimize your PPC campaigns for better results
In this blog post, we will show you how to do a PPC competitive analysis in six easy steps. Let’s get started!
Step 1: Identify Your PPC Competitors
The first step in doing a PPC competitive analysis is to identify who your main competitors are in the paid search space. You can start by using your own knowledge of your industry and market, as well as asking your sales and marketing teams for their input.
But you should also use some tools to help you find more competitors and get more data about them. Here are some of the tools that we recommend:
Google Ads Auction Insights
This is a feature within Google Ads that allows you to see who else is bidding on the same keywords as you, and how you compare to them in terms of impression share, average position, overlap rate, outranking share, and top of page rate. You can access this feature by going to the Campaigns, Ad Groups, or Keywords tabs in Google Ads, selecting the keywords you want to analyse, and clicking on Auction Insights.
SEMrush
This is a powerful SEO and PPC tool that lets you conduct ad research and see your competitors’ keywords, ad copy, landing pages, ad spend, traffic, and more. You can use the Advertising Research tool to enter your domain or a competitor’s domain and see all the data. You can also use the Keyword Gap tool to compare up to five domains and see which keywords they are bidding on and how they rank for them.
SpyFu
This is another great tool for spying on your competitors’ PPC campaigns. You can enter any domain or keyword and see the historical performance of their ads, including their ad variations, keywords, clicks, cost per click (CPC), budget, and more. You can also see their top competitors and compare them side by side.
Step 2: Analyse Their PPC Strategy
Once you have identified your main PPC competitors, the next step is to analyse their PPC strategy and see what they are doing right or wrong. Here are some of the aspects that you should look into:
Keyword Research
Keyword research is the process of finding the best keywords to target for your PPC campaigns. You should look at what keywords your competitors are bidding on, how much traffic and competition they have, how relevant they are to your business, and how much they cost. You should also look for gaps in their keyword strategy where you can find low-competition or high-intent keywords that they are missing out on.
Ad Placement
Ad placement refers to where your ads are shown on the search engine results pages (SERPs) or other websites. You should look at where your competitors’ ads are appearing, whether they are on the top or bottom of the SERPs, on specific websites or networks, or on social media platforms like YouTube or Facebook. You should also look at how often their ads are shown and what triggers them (such as keywords or audiences).
Ad Copy and Landing Pages
Ad copy and landing pages are the elements that persuade users to click on your ads and convert on your website. You should look at how your competitors write their ad headlines, descriptions, extensions, and calls to action (CTAs), and how they match their ad copy with their landing pages. You should also look at how they optimize their landing pages for conversions, such as using clear headlines, benefits, testimonials, forms, buttons, etc.
Step 3: Identify Their Target Audience
The third step in doing a PPC competitive analysis is to identify who your competitors are targeting with their PPC campaigns. Knowing your competitors’ target audience can help you understand their buyer personas, pain points, needs, wants, and motivations.
You can use some tools to help you find out more about your competitors’ target audience, such as:
Google Ads Audience Insights
This is a feature within Google Ads that allows you to see who is most likely to convert on your website based on their demographics (age, gender, parental status), interests (affinity categories, in-market segments), devices (mobile, desktop, tablet), and locations. You can access this feature by going to the Tools & Settings menu in Google Ads, clicking on Audience Manager, and then clicking on Audience Insights.
Facebook Audience Network
This is a network of websites and apps that show Facebook ads outside of Facebook. You can use this network to see where your competitors’ ads are being displayed and what kind of audience they are reaching. You can access this network by going to the Facebook Ads Manager, clicking on the Reach and Frequency tab, and then clicking on Audience Network.
SimilarWeb
This is a tool that allows you to see the traffic sources, audience insights, and engagement metrics of any website. You can use this tool to see where your competitors’ website visitors are coming from, what countries they are located in, what devices they are using, how long they stay on the website, how many pages they view, and more.
Step 4: Analyse Their Budget and Ad Spend
The fourth step in doing a PPC competitive analysis is to analyse how much your competitors are spending on their PPC campaigns and how they allocate their budget. Knowing your competitors’ budget and ad spend can help you estimate their return on investment (ROI) and see if they are overspending or underspending on their ads.
You can use some tools to help you estimate your competitors’ budget and ad spend, such as:
Google Ads Performance Planner
This is a feature within Google Ads that allows you to create and compare different PPC scenarios and see how they affect your performance and budget. You can use this feature to enter your competitors’ domains or keywords and see their estimated clicks, impressions, cost, conversions, and conversion value. You can also adjust different parameters such as bid, budget, location, device, etc., and see how they affect the results.
SEMrush Advertising Research
This is a tool that allows you to see your competitor’s ad spend history, trends, distribution, and seasonality. You can use this tool to enter your competitors’ domains or keywords and see their estimated ad spend over time, by country, by device, by network, by keyword, etc. You can also compare up to five domains or keywords and see their ad spend differences.
SpyFu Ad History
This is a tool that allows you to see your competitors’ ad spend history and fluctuations. You can use this tool to enter your competitors’ domains or keywords and see their estimated ad spend over time, by keyword, by position, by ad variation, etc. You can also compare up to three domains or keywords and see their ad spend differences.
Step 5: Analyse Their Performance and ROI
The fifth step in doing a PPC competitive analysis is to analyse how well your competitors are performing with their PPC campaigns and what kind of ROI they are getting. Knowing your competitors’ performance and ROI can help you benchmark your own results and see where you can improve or outperform them.
You can use some tools to help you measure your competitors’ performance and ROI, such as:
Google Ads Auction Insights
This is a feature within Google Ads that allows you to see how you compare to your competitors in terms of impression share, average position, overlap rate, outranking share, and top of page rate. These metrics can help you assess how often your ads are shown, how high they rank, how much they overlap with your competitors’ ads, how often they outrank them, and how often they appear at the top of the SERPs.
SEMrush Position Tracking
This is a tool that allows you to track your competitors’ rankings for specific keywords and locations. You can use this tool to enter your competitors’ domains or keywords and see their current and historical rankings on Google or Bing. You can also compare up to five domains or keywords and see their ranking differences.
SpyFu Kombat
This is a tool that allows you to compare your competitors’ performance for specific keywords. You can use this tool to enter up to three domains or keywords and see their clicks per month (CPM), cost per click (CPC), click-through rate (CTR), cost per day (CPD), number of advertisers (ADV), difficulty score (DIFF), etc.
Step 6: Gain a Competitive Edge
The final step in doing a PPC competitive analysis is to use all the insights that you have gathered from the previous steps to gain a competitive edge over your competitors. Here are some of the ways that you can do that:
- Find new keyword opportunities that your competitors are missing out on or targeting poorly
- Optimize your ad copy and landing pages to make them more relevant, engaging, persuasive, and conversion-oriented
- Test different ad variations, extensions, formats, placements, networks, etc., to find the best combinations for your campaigns
- Adjust your bids, budget, schedule, location, device, audience, etc., to maximize your ROI
- Monitor your competitors’ changes and trends and adapt accordingly.
Conclusion
Doing a PPC competitive analysis is a crucial step in creating and optimizing successful PPC campaigns. By following the six steps that we have outlined in this blog post, you can gain valuable insights into your competitors’ PPC strategies, keywords, ads, and performance. You can use these insights to improve your own PPC campaigns and gain a competitive edge over your competitors.
We hope that this blog post has helped you understand how to do a PPC competitive analysis and why it is important for your PPC success. If you need any help with your PPC campaigns, you can contact us at Expert eStores, the leading Digital Marketing Agency. We have a team of experienced and certified PPC experts who can help you create and manage effective and profitable PPC campaigns for your business.
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