The Key Fundamentals to PPC Competitor Research
Competitive analysis should be one of your top priorities at the beginning and throughout your PPC campaigns. But, it’s easy to get distracted optimising your own data instead of dedicating time to analyse your PPC competitors.
The battle for conversions, leads, customers and ROI through paid advertising is fierce. And it’s getting more challenging for businesses to differentiate themselves from their competitors.
You’re planning, running and monitoring your campaigns. You’re bidding on your brand terms and core keywords, but it’s important to remember your competitors are too. And they’re probably watching you.
Understanding your enemy is key to success. With Google continuously reducing the organic presence of domains on search results, it’s becoming more challenging for businesses to succeed in search. Competitor research is one the of most important steps of a paid strategy.
Do You Know Your Paid Advertising Competitors Are?
Answer honestly, did you hesitate when you read that question?
Competitors are nothing to be feared. In fact, they should inspire you to be better.
If you don’t know who your PPC competitors are, what they’re doing and what they’re achieving, don’t panic. Take a look as we detail what every business investing in paid advertising should use to analyse and understand their competitors.
To make things easy, we’re going back to basics with the 5 W’s – who, what, where, why and when.
1. WHO Are Your Competitors?
Don’t fall at the first hurdle – it’s crucial to know who you’re up against.
Discovering your competitors can sometimes be a struggle – because your online competitors may be different from your offline competition.
We could be here all day discussing the various tools you can use to find your PPC competitors. But we’re going to give you one simple way to find some of them. Google!
It seems a no-brainer but one of the main options to discover your PPC competitors is Google. Use the keywords you are targeting or planning to target and see what other domains appear on the search results. While Google can give you insights into your competitors – Different Gravy Digital can do a better job for you!
To contact us …
Book a meeting: michaelgoldman.co.uk/
Telephone: 0161 706 0004
Email: contact@differentgravydigital.co.uk
2. WHAT Keywords Are They Targeting?
Your competitors are not equal. Some might overlap with a few keywords, but all their campaigns are different. Closely examine who you’re up against and examine each competitor separately.
No matter how much keyword research you do, there’s always a chance that you miss some relevant keywords with the potential to help you reach targeted traffic.
Exploring your competitors targeted keywords can help you find some fresh ideas. Think about what keywords they’re using in their campaigns and ones you might have missed.
To find the keywords your competitors are targeting, tools like SEMRush are a big help. Use SEMRush to discover terms and phrases your competitors are using in their ads and analyse the data to understand how cost-effective a certain keyword can be for your domain. Gather data about their organic terms too to look for any hidden keyword gems.
B. WHERE Are they Competing with You?
There are a couple of things to think about.
A. Where are their PPC ads? Are they using channels besides Google? Think about:
- – Bing
- – Display Ads
When you’re looking into your competitors, it’s good to think about the opportunities you could be missing. Are there PPC platforms you haven’t utilised?
3. WHERE are they beating you?
Are they generating more traffic than you? Are the keywords they target more successful than yours? It’s good to know how your competition is positioning themselves to drive conversions. Are they highlighting a specific offer? What ad extensions are they implementing? All these questions will help you to optimise your own ads so you can generate more traffic.
Take inspiration from your competitors and look at how you can better your own PPC campaigns.
4. WHY Are You Doing This?
Competitive research plays a vital role in immediate and long-term return on investment. Through your competitive analysis, you will be able to improve your:
Keywords: by discovering what keywords your competitors are using, you will be able to come up with new keyword ideas.
Ad Text: reviewing your competitors ad texts, seeing what they’re offering, their credibility statements and the CTA’s they’re using will help you to improve your own.
Landing Page: analyse the elements of their landing pages to create your own page that outperforms theirs. Think about their use of forms, videos, images, downloads, reviews and calls-to-action.
5. WHEN You Should Fight Back
It’s time to apply what you have learnt.
So, you’ve conducted your detailed competitive analysis, and it’s time to use your findings to influence your own paid campaign. Look at your entire paid campaign considering the competitive analysis and see where it can be improved and how your offers, messaging and keyword grouping can become more competitive.
The Importance of Continuously Monitoring the Competition
The final step is to continue monitoring the competition.
Your competitors may launch a new product or offer, change their prices and improve their messaging. It’s important you constantly monitor your competition so you’re first to know of any changes.
Just like you’re improving your campaign – your competitors will be too. They are a great source of information – make competitive research a regularly thing to identify new competitors seeking to outshine you and to keep ahead of the existing ones.
But, How Do I Conduct PPC Competitor Research?
We’ve talked a lot about what you need to do – but how exactly do you do it? What tools and expertise do you need?
There are many online tools available that can help you unlock the answers to the 5 Ws. But to research your competitors thoroughly takes time and expertise. Different Gravy Digital are equipped with the know-how to conduct your competitive research and run your paid campaigns to maximise return on investment.
Get a free PPC review and no obligation consultation, contact us:
Book a meeting: michaelgoldman.co.uk/
Telephone: 0161 706 0004