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April 22, 2021A Quick Guide To Paid Search Competitor Analysis
Paid search is a powerful resource for businesses for enhancing their growth and reaching out to their customers with any barrier in between. It is an essential digital marketing tactic for those who want to drive more (but relevant) traffic to their websites.
There are numerous ways of driving traffic to your website and improving your website’s ranking on the SERPs. However, they are time-consuming and need time to nurture. Whereas the paid search advertising has proven to be efficient and quick – ideal for those who need instant growth and results.
Marketers spent around $106.5 billion on paid search advertising in 2019; this amount is projected to grow to $132 billion by 2022. They have good reason for spending such exorbitant sums of money. An overwhelming number of buyers prefer to make purchases after seeing a paid ad suggestion, while 75% of people say paid search ads make it easier for them to find what they need.
That’s enough motivation for businesses to start investing in the right strategy. However, to get real results from your paid search campaigns, it is crucial to know how your competitors are using this advertising resource.
When done right, paid search competitor analysis can make your paid search ad campaigns more effective and fruitful.
If you want to enhance your business’s online presence quickly, dive in to find out how paid search can help you achieve that goal.
Table of Contents
How Does Paid Search Work?
Paid search is a simple yet effective advertising technique used by marketers to place ads on the Search Engine Results Pages. They pay only for the engagement they receive through those ads.
Paid search marketing allows marketers to advertise on SERPs through pay-per-click (PPC) or pay-per-view (PPV) means. Whereas the organic search results work with SEO to make websites rank higher on the SERPs.
It is proven to be more successful than other strategies used by marketers as over 74% of brands claim that paid search marketing has been a massive driver for their businesses. And 79% claim it to be highly beneficial for them.
The world is moving towards automation, making businesses more efficient and smart. Today, technology allows marketers to sit and watch while the tech-enabled algorithms bring relevant customer data to them. Paid search is also an essential part of this automation drive.
Here is how it helps your business grow exponentially in no time:
- Produces fast results
- Generates more qualified leads for your business
- Provides more measurable results
- Improves brand recognition
- Proven to be prodigious for local search
- Works as a budget-friendly option
According to the stats, Google ads reach over 80% of the internet audience across the globe. As a result, there is no doubt about the efficacy of paid search marketing and its potential to help businesses grow. However, none of this is possible without proper market research and robust competitor analysis. Therefore, let’s dive in to explore these aspects.
This guide will help you understand:
- What is paid search competitor analysis?
- How to conduct a paid search competitor analysis?
- What tools can help you in conducting an accurate competitor analysis?
Paid Search Competitor Analysis And How To Do One
Whether you are a small business owner, entrepreneur, or market leader in your industry, competitor analysis plays a crucial part in making your marketing strategy successful. Moreover, it is vital to identify the right marketing tactics based on industry trends. This is key to building a budget-friendly marketing model that fulfills your business’s needs.
Competitor analysis is the foundation for any form of marketing, and paid search advertisement is no different. It harvests digital consumer insights into your strategy, helping you make informed decisions for your paid search marketing strategy.
Upright competitor analysis is supposed to be performed regularly to help you outsmart your competitors every day by coming up with better Rankings and ROIs. However, tracking every move of your competitors is crucial, but focusing too much on them and forgetting about the customers is never good.
Knowing your rivals is vital for your paid search strategy, but replicating everything they do isn’t! So, here are a few things that a Paid Search Competitive Analysis helps you recognize:
- Who your competitors are
- Their performance on the SERPs
- Their highest ranking keywords
- Where you stand in the market compared to them
- Type of clientele they have
- Ad strategies they use
- Their level of engagement
- Products they offer
- Their bidding strategies
- Their ad extension usage
- What their landing pages look like
Wondering How To Conduct A Paid Search Competitor Analysis?
There are many methods and a vast array of intelligence tools available online for evaluating competitor exposure in paid search and advertising. It is possible to retrieve data on keyword performance, keyword volume, and average position through these resources. You can even find out how long your competitors run their ads for, when they were first and last seen, along with the landing pages they are directed to.
Most of these competitor intelligence tools offer tiered plans with monthly premiums, while some are available for free.
Key Features To Look For When Choosing A Paid Search Competitor Analysis Tool
Each competitor analysis tool has a unique set of features. Chances are that you’ll need a couple of them to carry out a 360-degree analysis since none of the tools offer all-in-one functionality. Some of these software are built explicitly for paid search competitor analysis, while the rest can also work for broader digital marketing purposes.
If you want a full-fledged resource that provides comprehensive competitor analysis, covering as many metrics as possible, here’s what you need to look for.
Choose a tool that allows you to explore:
1. Keyword Insights
You should be able to explore the most valuable and least valuable keywords, current and past keywords, which your competitors are using or have used in the past. Also, you need to know the unique or overlapping keywords to understand the competition and the opportunities that your competitors are missing out on.
2. Ad Copy Insights
You need to track ad copy changes, which occurred in the past or the ones that are happening currently. Ad copies are one of the hardest things to get right. Therefore, you need a tool that provides accurate past and present data.
3. Ad Group Insights
You need to observe closely how your competitors have structured their ad accounts so that you won’t have to start from scratch when you build your business’s ad account.
4. Context And Guidance
When dealing with large packets of data, it can be overwhelming to find the information you need. Therefore, you need a tool that provides you with context and advice when exploring competitor analytics. You should look for tools that offer KEI and AEI guidance as they set the data in a helpful context for marketers.
5. Landing Page Insights
Most tools don’t pay much heed to landing page analytics. However, it is the core of any PPC or Paid Search campaign because once the paid ad diverts clicks to the landing page, it decides if the prospects will convert or not.
You need to study if your competitors are making good User Journeys that convert. Paid search is not always data and increased traffic; once the leads are directed to the landing page, the creative, design, interface, and copywriting of the page dictates the rest.
6. Clear User Interface
Functionality is considered as the core of any PPC or Paid Search campaign. You need a tool that offers a clear and easy-to-understand interface. The information or data provided should be intuitive, well-defined, organized, clutter-free, easy to access, and approachable through simple navigation.
Tools used by Marketers To Conduct Competitor Analysis
In this guide, we have picked out five excellent paid search competitor analysis tools to help businesses and marketers make informed decisions. The list includes paid search analysis tools and some others that have a broader functionality and work for various other research purposes.
1. Ahrefs
Ahrefs is one of the most commonly used tools for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). It is great for backlink and keyword research. However, it also has a decent functionality for PPC and Paid search competitor analysis, which serves as supplementary benefits for the SEO experts while providing keywords analysis that works for PPC.
You can find a comprehensive toolbar of exclusive features on Ahrefs’s dashboard and the “Paid Search” option on the bottom of that toolbar.
Working with Ahrefs for paid search competitor analysis allows you to explore:
- PPC keywords
- Top ranking Ads
- Top ranking landing pages
- Ads history
Ahrefs provides accurate research data and has excellent SEO capabilities for looking up organic rankings, backlinks, and keyword data analysis. However, its PPC and paid search functionality are also commendable but secondary.
Pricing: Ahrefs is a paid tool with a subscription of $99 monthly premium.
2. SpyFu
SpyFu comes with concrete and an almost complete set of PPC and paid search competitor analysis features. It allows you to explore any domain, look up your competitors, keywords, keyword groupings, PPC keywords, and so much more.
Some of the key features of SpyFu include:
- Kombat (shared Paid Keywords)
- Most profitable ads and Keywords history
- AdWords advisor
It is widely used for PPC and paid search competitor analysis worldwide to develop robust marketing strategies.
A critical feature of SpyFu “AdWords Advisor” gives recommendations for the most profitable keywords based on data retrieved from your competitors. Moreover, it enables marketers to browse their competitors’ AdWords campaigns and check out their split test results.
Pricing: SpyFu is a paid tool available for marketers at a premium of $39 per month, which can go up to $299 per month for extra features like multiple user accounts and API access.
3. SEMRush
SEMRush is somewhat similar to Ahrefs. It is a comprehensive digital marketing tool. It is widely used for numerous purposes when it comes to competitor analysis. The SEO features are unbeatable, but this resource supports PPC and paid search analysis as well. Therefore, some of its relevant features come in handy for conducting a paid search competitive research.
Marketers can use the “Advertising Research” feature of SEMRush to conduct their paid search analysis. Here are a few competitor features that you can examine with this tool:
- Ad copies
- Ad history
- Position and position changes
SEMRush can provide adequate research results for SEO and paid search even though SEO is its core functionality. However, the tools come in handy when you need insights into competitors’ paid campaigns.
Pricing: SEMRuch is a paid tool with a starting premium of $99 per month.
4. Search Monitor
Search Monitor helps you track ads across various locations and devices. The tool offers two primary services:
- Brand protection
- Competitive insights
Since it is built for competitor analysis, you can easily monitor your competitors’ bids, content, landing pages, FTC compliance, PPC benchmarks, product listing ads (PLA), and more.
Pricing: It is a paid tool with a $599 monthly premium. There is no free trial either, but you can get in touch with their sales team to get a demo.
5. Buzzsumo
Buzzsumo is a fantastic competitive intelligence tool for Paid Search and PPC. It allows you to enter any competitor’s domain and lookup their content. with this tool, you can easily discover:
- Their most shared content
- Filtered content by format
- networks that are driving the most traffic and shares
- who sharing your competitor’s content
- exportable list of sharers
Most people prefer to enjoy their alerts features, which enable you to set up alerts. These alerts will notify the marketers about competitors’ and their own brand’s updates.
Wrapping Up
Paid advertising isn’t easy or cheap. That’s why businesses are always on the lookout for ways to maximize their ad spend and get value for money. Competitor analysis is a reliable way to enhance your ads’ effectiveness as it informs your campaigns on what you are up against.
Understanding the metrics, finding the right intelligence tools, and then conducting a successful Paid Search Competitor Analysis can make a world of difference to building your next campaign.
So follow the tenets defined in this guide, and make informed decisions when choosing the best tools for you. This is key to curating a robust Paid Search Marketing strategy based on your accurate competitor analysis.
He is a recurring speaker at the Search Marketing Expo conference series and a TEDx Talker. Today he works directly with high-end clients across all verticals to maximize search engine marketing (SEM) ROI. Connect with Sam on Linkedin.
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