Strategies for Performing PPC Competitive Analysis

Engaging in pay-per-click advertising can be beneficial for many reasons, such as increasing brand visibility, generating leads, and improving website traffic. Although, due to the high competition, it is difficult to achieve success with PPC marketing. PPC marketing is a complex field that requires knowledge and strategy. To be successful in the PPC business, you need to learn PPC competitive analysis.

It is essential to perform PPC competitive analysis to gain insight into the approaches your opponents are utilizing and become familiar with their Google Ads plans.

In order to conduct a successful PPC competitive analysis, six essential steps should be followed:

• Ascertain who your rivals are

• Examine their PPC plan

• Inspect the copy of their advertisements and the pages they direct to

• Establish who their target audience is

• Investigate their budget and expenditure on ads

• Assess their results and the return on investment they produce

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We’ll take a look at how to conduct competitive analysis for PPC marketing.

Step 1: Pinpoint Other Players in the Field

To begin any PPC competitive analysis, it is essential to determine who your competitors are.

If you already have an established business with comprehensive knowledge on rivals, this step should not be skipped. Fresh contenders may be entering or broadening in the industry, so they should not be overlooked.

Tap into your internal resources to pinpoint competitors – your sales and marketing departments can tell you who’s out there – but there are also some great tools to use.

Using SEMRush , you can easily conduct ad research and Google Ads Auction Insights can be used to evaluate your ad, bidding strategy, and how your campaign is performing in comparison to your competitors.

A comparison of Google Ads Auctions is depicted in the following image.

Step 2 is to assess the Pay-Per-Click (PPC) approach they are using.

Once you identify who your competition is, you can evaluate the effectiveness of their PPC strategy. It is beneficial to combine SEO and PPC in order to optimize results from both organic and paid channels. Here are some successful techniques to achieve that.

Investigating Keywords

Once you have conducted a competitive analysis for SEO, it should be straightforward to identify which terms/keywords your rivals are ranking for.

Doing the same exercise for PPC is worthwhile, as it may reveal terms or phrases not previously thought of for paid advertising.

Examining SEMRush’s Keyword Gap tool is an effective way of discovering the keywords your competitors are targeting.

Assessing the volume and CPC of keywords is a good way to determine their cost-effectiveness. This can reveal any deficiencies in your keyword strategy.

Examination of Advertisement Placement

Investigate where your competitors are advertising. Do you see their ads on search engine results pages (SERPs), certain websites, or maybe even on social media platforms like YouTube?

In order to detect ideal locations to place your ads, it is necessary to investigate the data. You can take advantage of Similarweb for this purpose. It is advisable to try out different approaches and evaluate the results of your content.

Keep Track of their Search Results

Gain insight into your competitor’s search engine performance, ad copy, and expenditure by utilizing paid or free tools already discussed. This information will be useful for constructing your own bidding strategy and ad copy.

Utilizing Ad Intelligence Applications

Tools such as Spyfu are useful for gaining insight into the past performance of your competition’s advertising efforts. This includes data such as how much they have spent, the click-through rates, and the conversion rates.

A graph showing the Spyfu dashboard can be seen below:

Gaining an understanding of their successful strategies can help you decide if it’s a good idea to apply them to your own work.

Step 2: Examine Their Advertisement Text and Landing Pages

The relevance of content is pivotal in terms of audience engagement and conversion. If an advertiser is not customizing their advertisements or the content of the landing page to focus on the interests and requirements of the public, then it is improbable that they will click or remain present for a lengthy period.

Examining Advertising Copy

An analysis of ad copy can be beneficial in understanding how to create successful campaigns. Examining the language used, the message being sent, and the target audience can help to ensure that a company’s advertising is effective.

In order to enhance the effectiveness of your copy, it is beneficial to analyze what your rivals are doing. Consider the way they are presenting their products or services and what advantages they are emphasizing as their selling points.

In order to achieve this, one should ponder:

• Is their ad copy full of specific words?

• Is the language formal, casual, or funny?

• What visuals or videos are used to attract attention?

• What kind of calls-to-action do they have?

• Do the colors of the ads reflect the company’s branding?

Using a different structure, the same concept can be expressed as:

The ability to transform the structure of the text without altering the contextual and semantic meaning is a great way to get rid of plagiarism.

A different way of expressing the same idea is to state that it is essential to change the structure of the text without altering the semantic meaning or context. Doing so ensures that no plagiarism is present.

Examining a Landing Page

An effective landing page can prove to be advantageous in relation to your conversion rate. Its content should be well-arranged, speak to your desired demographic, and include an effective CTA in order to motivate people to click through.

Ensure that the text on your landing page corresponds to the source that directed the visitor to it. For instance, if a person clicked on a Facebook ad, does the content on the landing page meet the expectations set in the ad? Does it align with the message and appearance of the advertisement?

Using Google’s auction report, you can get an idea of which landing pages are producing the best results for your rivals. Create a list and take some time to review them. Pay attention to what they are doing right and why it’s working. Additionally, consider which areas you could improve on or draw inspiration from.

Consider conversion rate optimization for maximum effectiveness in converting prospects into customers or leads.

Step 3: Determine the Desired Demographic

This fourth step involves recognizing the group of people who the business is aiming to reach out to.

By getting to know the intended demographic of your competitors, you can determine if your PPC targeting is accurate or if there are specific buyer personas you have not included.

Now is the moment to conduct some research. Analyze who your opponents are aiming for with their PPC plan. What channels do they employ? If it is B2B, what occupations or levels of seniority are they focusing on? If it’s B2C, is there a definite age range or gender classification?

Identifying target audiences can be done with the assistance of resources like SimilarWeb, AHREFs, and Google Ads Keyword Planner.

Step 4: Examine their Financial Resources and Advertising Expenditures

With competition for keywords increasing and marketing funds becoming more limited, it’s imperative to make the most of PPC campaigns.

Gain an understanding of your competitors’ financial plans by analyzing the amounts of money and resources they are investing in. You can do this by:

• Utilize ad intelligence software (e.g. Spyfu or AdGooroo)

• Examine search engine standings

• Keep an eye on competitor ads and the frequency of their occurrence

• Examining their online presence, including social media

• Connecting with industry figures and finding out more about budget allotments

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By changing its structure, the same context and semantic meaning of the text can be maintained without any plagiarism.

By utilizing these strategies, you can gain a better comprehension of your industry and observe how your competitors are drawing in their audiences.

Step 5: Assess their Results and Return on Investment

Gaining insight into the efficacy of your rivals’ PPC campaigns in terms of their performance and return on investment is essential.

One way to measure performance is to compare your industry to standard benchmarks. For instance, Wordstream offers an example of what to expect from Google and Microsoft Ads in 2022. This can be used to create achievable KPIs for your campaigns.

Pictured here is an illustration of search advertising benchmarks. This graph shows the standard performance metrics for search advertising.

It is important to monitor the following metrics: average positions, cost per click, cost per lead, click-through rate (CTR), impression share, cost per acquisition, and conversion rate.

It is important to note that it may take a while to optimize your PPC efforts. Thus, it is necessary to review, modify and examine the results.

Gaining insight into rival PPC strategies is possible by conducting an analysis

Keeping ahead of the competition requires a regular analysis of your PPC strategies. DMI provides a PPC course that covers the basics of paid search, PPC campaigns, reporting, and GA4, and much more. Sign up now!

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Conclusion

In conclusion, performing a pay-per-click competitive analysis is an essential step in developing a successful digital marketing strategy. By utilizing the outlined strategies, such as identifying your competitors, analyzing their keywords, ads, and landing pages, and monitoring their bidding strategies, you can gain valuable insights to improve your own PPC campaigns. Leveraging these insights allows you to make data-driven decisions, optimize your ad spend, and uncover untapped opportunities to outperform your competition. Ultimately, a thorough PPC competitive analysis empowers your business to create more effective and targeted campaigns, driving higher return on investment, and fostering sustainable growth in an increasingly competitive digital landscape.