Cutting Edge Tactics to Spy on PPC Competition
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This document summarizes a webinar about conducting competitive research and analysis for pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. It provides tips on researching competitors' keywords, budgets, ads and trends using tools like AdWords Auction Insights, Google Trends and SEMrush. It also discusses bidding on competitor terms, using remarketing lists for search ads, ad scheduling, and analyzing programmatic advertising techniques. The webinar included polls to understand participants' PPC experience and account management practices.
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Cutting Edge Tactics to Spy on PPC Competition
- 1. Spy On Your PPC Competition #thinkppc Cutting-Edge Tactics To & HOSTED BY:
- 2. #thinkppc Presenters • David Black – Customer Success Director at SEMrush – @theguyatsemrush • Cassie Oumedian – Senior Digital Specialist at Hanapin Marketing. – @cass_oumedian
- 3. #thinkppc Join the conversation • Include the hashtag #thinkppc in your Twitter tweets. Or use the webinar question box to send us questions.
- 4. Inc. 5000 Competitive Research Study • 4 out of 5 companies on the Inc 5000 list spend money on PPC advertising • The IT Services industry also spends the #thinkppc most on PPC • The Advertising and Marketing Industry spends the largest percentage of its revenue on PPC
- 5. #thinkppc Live Poll Question #1 How long have you been in PPC? #thinkppc A. Less than 1 year B. 1-3 years C. 3-5 years D. 5+ years
- 6. #thinkppc Live Poll Question #2 How do you manage your account(s)? #thinkppc a) I manage it myself. b) I’m part of a team that manages it. c) I outsource my account management. d) I’m rethinking how my account is managed.
- 7. Competitor Research and Analysis • Start with researching the competitive PPC landscape. • Analyze competitor’s keywords, budget, ads and trends. • Competitive research tools make this MUCH easier #thinkppc AdWords Auction Insights Google Trends SEMrush
- 8. Competitive Research and Analysis #thinkppc Create a SWOT analysis. Understand your place in the market and create a plan of attack on how to approach competition in the PPC space.
- 9. Don’t have a budget of 5.2 Million dollars to spend on PPC like your GoDaddy.com competitor?? #thinkppc
- 10. Remarketing Lists for Search Ads Strategy Tip: Use RLSA to bid on expensive generic terms your competitors bid on that are too expensive to bid on solely on Search network. #thinkppc Have an AdWords Remarketing Tag pixel on your page?
- 11. #thinkppc Ad Scheduling • Time of Day • Day of Week • Geo-location
- 12. #thinkppc Ad Scheduling • Time of Day, Day of Week
- 13. #thinkppc Ad Scheduling • Geo-location
- 14. Bidding on competitor terms is generally accepted in the US and typically Google will not investigate as long as trademark terms are not used in the creative. #thinkppc Bid on Competitor Brand Terms • Competitor Name • Competitor Domain • Competitor Product Name • Competitor Product SKU numbers • Competitor Name + Product/service you also provide Bid on competitor terms cautiously and be sure to read up on Google’s trademark policies to make sure you are not in violation!
- 15. Competitor Bidding Pros & Cons #thinkppc Pros: • Lower volume but higher conversion rates – 11X Higher CVR • Lower CPAs (21% Lower CPA in the campaign above) • Usually higher CTRs Cons: • CpCs more expensive – 10X higher CPCs • Low Quality Scores due to lack of keyword/ ad/ landing page relevancy • Competitors cold start bidding on your brand terms increasing CpCs
- 16. #thinkppc Competitor Performance #1 Rule For Bidding on Competitor Terms…. NEVER USE DKI (Dynamic Keyword Insertion)!!
- 17. #thinkppc Gmail Sponsored Ads • Target users in their gmail accounts by targeting specific domains… competitor domains or other competitive keywords. ** May not be available in all verticals. Check with your Google rep.
- 18. #thinkppc Gmail Sponsored Ads Results
- 19. #thinkppc Live Poll Question #3 Where does competitor analysis fit into your Marketing plan? a.) I’ve done it in the past but not right now. b.) I am actively conducting competitor analysis. c.) I haven’t yet. But, I will now! d.) No plans in the foreseeable future.
- 20. Programmatic Analysis Techniques #thinkppc SEMrush Our Data Collection and Analysis All these data are great but you need to know everything about your sample in order to account for variables and draw accurate conclusions. Our total keyword database = Over 100m keywords worldwide Infographic is based on the top 40m keywords in Google US Analyzing millions of SERPs everyday Analysis applied to top 20 organic/ads positions in each SERP
- 21. #thinkppc Where Do These Data Fit In? Application Who can utilize these data? (Search Engine) Marketing intelligence data has a number of different applications within and outside of the direct industry. Small Business Owners – DIY’ers SEO and PPC consultants – The one man band Digital Marketing Agencies of any size Enterprise-level in-house marketing departments Investors
- 22. #thinkppc Got the Data – Now What? Organic Search Marketing Improving your visibility in natural search results The keyword/domain connection is an excellent way to enhance your keyword research. On-site optimization: Titles, tags, URL’s, Navigation, Sitemaps, etc. “Not Provided” got ya down? SEMrush = “Provided” Content development and Semantic core improvement Proactively or reactively fight algorithmic penalties
- 23. #thinkppc Got the Data – Now What? Paid Search Marketing Minimize Risk & Maximize ROI Optimize existing search network AdWords and display network campaigns OR create beautifully crafted campaigns from the get-go. Don’t go in blind! Know which keywords drive traffic and convert Write copy that attracts for better CTR Figure out what works and (sometimes) more importantly, what doesn’t work!
- 24. The Method: Competitor Analysis #thinkppc
- 25. #thinkppc Your Competitors Keywords %
- 26. #thinkppc Analyze Historical Data
- 27. Recognizing Patterns & Behavior #thinkppc
- 28. Would you like help with your PPC accounts and management? I’m interested in: #thinkppc Live Poll Question #4 a.) FREE Account Assessment from Hanapin (for accounts spending more than 20K/mo) b.) Free One Month Trial of SEMrush c.) No Thanks d.) Both
- 29. #thinkppc Live Q&A Time!
- 30. #thinkppc Have more questions? Thank you for attending our webinar! #thinkppc • Contact us Directly: » Hanapin Feedback: marketing@hanapinmarketing.com SEMrush Feedback: mail@semrush.com / david_black@semrush.com
Editor's Notes
- Welcome everyone! Today will be talking about cutting edge tactics for spying on your competitors and how to make that information actionable for your PPC programs
- Cassie – I’m a PPC vet with about 6 years experience in the PPC agency world. I’ve been with Hanapin for about 2 years now and have a passion for spying on my PPC competitors which is why I was selected to do this webinar with our friend David Black at SEMrush. David would like to take a minute to introduce yourself?
- Don’t be shy! Join in on the conversation for todays webinar by including the hastag thnkpcc in your tweets. Or use the comment box and we will save some time at the end to answer any questions you may have.
- Cassie The PPC industry is always growing, and sometimes even we’re surprised by how fast the digital advertising landscape expands and changes. We thought it would be interesting to take a look at Inc Magazine’s list of the 5000 fastest growing companies in America and see how they spend their PPC dollars. So we partnered with SEM Rush to create the infographic here which details how these Inc 5000 companies use PPC to scale up their businesses and turbocharge their results. As we can see – The IT Services industry also spends the most on PPC – including companies like GoDaddy.com 4 out of 5 companies on the Inc 5000 list spend money on PPC advertising The Advertising and Marketing Industry spends the largest percentage of its revenue on PPC So as you can see with some of these Inc. 5000 companies spending big dollars on PPC, having a strategic competitor plan will be important to compete in the digital space. Lucky for you, we will cover some tips on how to do just that.
- David does #1
- Cassie does question #2
- Cassie Start with researching the competitive PPC landscape. Analyze competitor’s keywords, budget, ads and trends. Understand your place in the PPC space. Finding this information manually can be tricky and time consuming but very important, especially if you are in a very competitive space or have a small budget. You can use the Auction Insights available in your AdWords account but this only gives information for keywords showing up for and nothing for Bing. You can manually search terms but that can be super time consuming. I highly recommend using some sort of competitive research tool and lucky for you folks, David From SEMrush is here today to show you more about how their tool works for doing competitive research.
- Cassie Once you’ve gathered all your data, Perform a GAP or a SWOT analysis to see where your strengths and weakness are compared to your competitors in the digital space. For example, maybe you see your competitor is running a 20% off ad and you are running a 10% off ad. Understanding where you can stand out from your competitor will be key to a successful PPC strategy. Capitalize on areas where your competitors are weak and learn where you need to work on being more competitive.
- Cassie Lucky for you we will cover a few strategic tips on how to compete with your big budgeted competitors – Get champagne results on a beer budget.
- Cassie If you don’t have a remarketing tag on your site. Step 1, DO THAT ASAP. You are really missing out. Step 2, Now that you’ve done your research, you have an idea of what high volume keywords your competitors are bidding on. The problem is that they may be way more expensive than you can afford – story of my life. Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA) are a great way for you to compete with the big budgeted competitors on keywords that you find valuable. RLSA allows you to show ads to users that have previously visited your site while they continue to search on the Google Search Network. Since these users have already shown interest in your site and there is a smaller audience, the price of those competitive terms becomes more tolerable to your budget “Tirendo, a European online tire retailer, saw a 161% conversion rate increase with remarketing lists for search ads, leading to a 22% overall sales increase” - Google
- Cassie Let’s say you don’t have enough cookied users on your search remarketing list yet to use RLSA. The next best option for competing on these competitive terms is using ad scheduling. Take one of the competitive terms, go to your dimensions tab and analyze performance by hour of the day and day of the week. This analysis will give you a better idea of when it makes most sense for you to attempt to compete on these terms.
- Cassie Maybe you notice that between 1am-7am there is not as much traffic and the conversions are more expensive so you choose to opt out or bid down during those times. Or maybe you go the other route and push hard by increasing bids during times of the day when there doesn’t seem to be as much competition. Implementing ad scheduling can help stretch that shoestring budget.
- Cassie Maybe there is a region that performs well for you and there is limited competition so increase bid modifers for specific geo-locations to compete with big budgeted competitors in regions where it is most profitable for you. Maybe in Georgia your shipping costs are lower so you focus more heavily on this area.
- Cassie Bidding on your big budgeted competitor terms can be a great way to piggyback off their brand terms. Typically these campaigns convert well because the user has done their research and ready to purchase. Bidding on competitor terms is generally accepted in the US and typically Google will not investigate as long as trademark terms are not used in the creative. Some terms you could bid on include: Competitor Name Competitor Domain Competitor Product Name Competitor Product SKU numbers Competitor Name + Product/service you also provide If you do decide to pursue this approach, be cautious. If a competitor complains about a particular keyword or set of keywords you are advertising against, the best policy, in my opinion, would probably be to simply stop using those keywords immediately. If a competitor is bidding on your terms, why not at least complain send them a note asking them to stop, even if you’re on unclear legal grounds?
- Cassie Brand terms, and SKU/Models, on average, should have a very high click-through rate, perhaps twice the normal average. They should also convert at a higher rate than the typical keyword. Pros: Lower volume but higher conversion rates – 11X Higher CVR Lower CPAs (21% Lower CPA in the campaign above) Usually higher CTRs Cons: CpCs more expensive – 10X higher CPCs Low Quality Scores due to lack of keyword/ ad/ landing page relevancy Competitors cold start bidding on your brand terms increasing CpCs
- Cassie Whatever you do, NEVER USE DKI in a competitive ad copy. You will be in violation of adwords policy and could be at risk for a potential law suit. Not worth it. Be selective with ad copy. Do your research.
- Cassie Gmail Sponsored Ads are another Google product that can be used in competitive strategies by bidding on specific competitor terms. This strategy will allow your Gmail Sponsored Ads to show up in user email whenever someone mentions a competitor’s domain. Unlike Display AdSense text ads that take the user directly to a landing page, all Gmail Sponsored ads, including those in the Promotions tab, open a screen like the one below. This is a separate platform that you will need to contact a Google Rep to get access to. Gmail Sponsored Promotions ads are priced on a cost-per-click basis. Advertisers are only charged the first time an ad is clicked and aren’t charged for actions taken from the promotional message.. End users have the ability to save or forward the ad. They can also dismiss the ad which will prevent the ad displaying in their email again.
- Cassie There are two parts to a Gmail Ad. 1) The teaser, which you see in the sidebar/promotions inbox. 2) The “email”, which you see when you first click on the teaser. Clicking beyond that email sends you to your designated landing page. These ads typically don’t see a lot of volume but tend to convert really well when set up correctly
- David
- LEAVE OPEN IN Q&A