A Comprehensive Guide to Performing PPC Competitor Analysis
Knowing what your competitors are doing in the world of PPC is crucial for the success of your own campaigns. By monitoring their activities, you can learn from their strengths and weaknesses, capitalize on missed opportunities, and ultimately run more effective PPC campaigns. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore different strategies for conducting PPC competitor analysis.
1. Check out the Google Ads Transparency Center
The Google Ads Transparency Center is a valuable tool that allows you to search for a company and see the ads they have been running. This tool covers various platforms, including Search, Shopping, and YouTube. With filters such as date range, location, and ad type, you can narrow down your search and get insights into your competitors’ activities. Additionally, it provides information on when a particular ad was last shown, allowing you to stay up to date with their advertising strategy. Analyzing your competitor’s ad copy and creatives can give you a better understanding of their overall strategy, especially when it comes to display ads.
2. Roleplay a potential customer
While it may go against PPC etiquette, clicking on your competitor’s ads and exploring their offerings from the perspective of a potential customer can provide valuable insights. By going through the entire customer journey, from making a search to landing on their website, you can gather important information. Take note of the ad copy they are using and its relevance to the search term. Pay attention to the landing page they use and whether it is PPC-specific or just their homepage. Evaluate the first impressions their landing page gives and assess the navigation and ease of use. Look for clear calls to action (CTAs) and determine what your competitor wants PPC traffic to do. By analyzing their post-click experience, you can identify opportunities to improve your own campaigns and optimize your conversion rates.
3. Review your Auction Insights
Google Ads provides a helpful report called Auction Insights, which allows you to compare your performance to that of your auction competitors. This report shows campaign performance information that your competitors won’t openly discuss. Three universal metrics in this report are impression share (IS), overlap rate, and outranking share. Impression share gives you an idea of how many impressions you received compared to the estimated amount you were eligible to receive. A low impression share could indicate issues with approval statuses, quality scores, or targeting options. Overlap rate shows how frequently your competitors’ ads were shown on the same results page as yours. This metric helps you gauge how often your target audience is seeing ads from both you and your competitor. Outranking share measures the percentage of times your ad ranked higher than other advertisers in the same auction. If you find that your competitors are regularly outranking you, it’s time to improve your bid strategy and ad relevance. Microsoft Advertising offers a similar report called Competition within the Campaigns box, allowing you to compare competitors across both platforms.
While many third-party tools are available to gather more information about your competitors’ PPC activities, it’s important to remember that these tools may not provide 100% accurate data. Use them to complement your competitor analysis, particularly when performing keyword gap analysis. The goal of analyzing your competitors’ PPC efforts is not to copy them but to find inspiration and ideas for improvement. By implementing these insights into your own work, you can run better PPC campaigns and achieve greater success.
In conclusion, performing PPC competitor analysis is a crucial step in optimizing your own campaigns. By using tools like the Google Ads Transparency Center, roleplaying as a potential customer, and reviewing your Auction Insights, you can gather valuable insights and stay ahead of the competition. Remember to focus on learning from your competitors rather than simply copying their actions. Use the information you gather to improve your own strategies and provide the best possible experience for your PPC traffic.
