PPC Competitive Analysis An essential component of any search marketing plan is understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. This knowledge helps you comprehend what links to gain, ad prices to pay, content to offer and customers to seek. In this session, we take a close look at what tricks you can use with search engines to analyze your competitors' game and also what free and premium tools are available to deep dive into their strategy. Join us for a candid discussion as panelists reveal their secrets for monitoring competitive forces and threats while sharing tips that can be successfully applied to any business intelligence effort. After attending this session, you'll have the skills to easily discover what keywords your competitor is targeting, how much your competitor is spending on ads, and be able to identify opportunities your competitor is missing.

1. PPC Competitive Analysis
Lisa Raehsler
SEM Strategy Consultant
August 17, 2011

2. Agenda
 Best Practices
 Monitoring Competitive Forces
 Helpful PPC Tools
@LisaRocksSEM

3. BEST PRACTICES
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4. Competitive Analysis Best Practices
 Ethical, public info
 They may be wrong
 Take it directionally
 Look at it in big
picture
 Actionable?
@LisaRocksSEM

5. MONITORING COMPETITIVE FORCES
@LisaRocksSEM

6. Monitoring Competitive Forces
 Like any competitive monitoring
only wear your PPC hat:
− Company
− Strategy
− Promotions
− Clients/Customers
@LisaRocksSEM

7. Monitoring Competitive Forces
 Monitor and listen for free:
– Google Alerts
– LinkedIn company Profile
– Twitter: employees & management
@LisaRocksSEM

8. HELPFUL PPC TOOLS
@LisaRocksSEM

9. Tools: Adwords Analyze Competition Tool
 Free Tool
 Compares your recent performance with that
of other AdWords advertisers.
@LisaRocksSEM

10. Tools: Adwords Analyze Competition Tool
 Drill down through the subcategories
 You’ll find a link “See Search Terms”
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11. Tools: Adwords Analyze Competition Tool
 Common search terms that triggered your ads and their
impact on the account.
@LisaRocksSEM

12. Tools: Compete
 Paid Tool
$199 to
$499 mo
 Competitve
site stats
 Search
Analytics
@LisaRocksSEM

13. Tools: Compete
 Search Analytics
– Keyword/Site List
– Search Referral Share
– Average Time Index per keyword
– Total Time Index per keyword
@LisaRocksSEM

14. Tools: iSpionage
 Free Tool +
Paid Tool
($59 to
$449)
 PPC & SEO
Data
Competitive
@LisaRocksSEM

15. Tools: iSpionage
 PPC Data
– Estimated PPC budgets
– Top keywords with CPCs
– Ad copy with destination URLs
• Can use this to make your ads standout!
@LisaRocksSEM

16. Takeaways
1. Follow best practices and take
competitive data directionally
2. Monitor competition focusing on
any PPC clues
3. Try different tools to help give
insights to missed opportunities
@LisaRocksSEM

17. Thank You!
 Contact Me:
Lisa Raehsler
Founder/ SEM Strategy Consultant, Big Click Co.
Google Adwords Certified Partner
lisa@bigclickco.com
(612) 424-1SEM
@LisaRocksSEM
www.linkedin.com/in/lisarockssem