How do you know you had a good PPC campaign? You check your click-through rate (CTR), cost per conversion, number of impressions, etc, right? You can. But it’s not the best way.
The best way is to compare your PPC campaign’s performance with your competitors. Why? Because If your ads perform better than your competitors, it’s irrefutable evidence of a good campaign and vice versa.
How Do I Perform a PPC Competitor Analysis?
It’s not hard. You just need to identify your competitors, obtain data about their campaigns, and compare it with your own.
Just follow these 6 steps.
Step 1: Identify Your Competitors
The first place to start any competitor analysis is to identify them. It doesn’t matter how established you are in your industry. You always need to start with identifying competitors.
There are always potential new entrants in your industry or existing businesses finding their own in your niche. There are always new competitors.
Identify your competitors using your sales and marketing teams. They’re the most likely to be aware of competitors and what they’re doing.
You could also employ some great tools, like Semrush and Google Ads Auction.
Semrush lets you research ads, while Google Ads Auction lets you measure campaign performance.
Step 2: Analyze Their PPC Strategy
After identifying your competitors, have a look at their PPC strategies. Check how their advertisers combine PPC with SEO to cover paid and organic search.
These strategies help.
1. PPC Keyword Research
A competitive SEO analysis will already reveal your competitors’ keywords. But you should still do the same for PPC because you could’ve missed terms or phrases you could use in paid advertising.
Use Semrush’s Keyword Gap tool to see your competitors’ keywords. Specifically, look at volume and CPC to learn how cost-effective keywords are.
Use this information to identify the potential gaps in your keyword strategy.
2. PPC Ad Placement Analysis
Learn where your competitors display their ads. Is it mostly on the search engine results page (SERPS)? Specific websites, or social media platforms, like Facebook and Instagram?
Use this information to experiment with where you could potentially place your ads. SimilarWeb can help do this.
3. Monitor their PPC Search Results
Use free or paid tools to learn about your competitor’s search results. Focus on their:
- Search engine ranking
- Ad spend
- Ad copy
This information will help you with your own bidding strategy and ad copy.
4. Use Ad Intelligence Tools
Use ad intelligence tools to view your competitors’ historical ad performance. These tools reveal everything from their ad spend click-through and even conversion rates.
Naturally, these insights reveal what works for them. Experiment with doing the same to see if it works for you, too.
Step 3: Analyze Their Ad Copy and Landing Pages
Content is king when it comes to engagement and conversion. Audiences are only likely to click on ad copy and landing page content that’s tailored to their needs and interests.
Ad Copy Analysis
Ad copy analysis is a great way to improve your own copy performance. Notice how they position their products and services.
- How do they present their unique selling points (USPs)?
- What specific keywords are they using?
- What’s their content tone?
These are all questions you should ask yourself while doing the analysis. The goal is to break down everything they do and figure out what makes it work.
Landing Page Analysis
A high-quality landing page translates to an excellent conversion rate. What makes a landing page good?
High-quality content tailored for your audience with a good CTA relevant to the reader’s point of origin. That’s what.
If a consumer clicks on a Facebook ad, they should be directed to a relevant landing page.
The landing page should have the same style of messaging, the same look, and the same feeling.
Use Google’s auction report to identify your competitors’ top landing pages. Then make a list of what works and why.
Use that information as inspiration to improve your own landing page. Do what’s best to turn your prospective leads into customers.
Step 4: Identify Who Their PPC Strategy Targets
Understanding your competitors’ audience helps identify whether you’re missing out on any buyer personas. Look at who your competitors’ PPC strategy targets and learn everything you can about them.
For example, what channels are they using? What types of buyer personas are they targeting? SimilarWeb, AHREFs, and Google Ads Keyword Planner will help you achieve this.
Step 5: Analyze their Budget and Advertising Spend
Bidding for keywords is hard, especially as your budget gets tighter. So it’s vital to get the best bang for your buck. Do that by seeing what your competitors’ budgets are and how they allocate resources.
You’ll have to employ a mixed strategy to achieve this. Use ad intelligence tools and search engine ranking analysis to build your own estimates. But leverage your network with industry insiders to gain more information about budget spending.
Acquiring this information lets you better understand your industry, especially what works for your competitors.
Step 6: Analyze their Performance and ROI
Analyzing your competitors’ performance and ROI for PPC activity gives you a benchmark for your campaign. And the best way to learn about your competitors’ performance and ROI is to analyze your industry’s standards to make estimates.
- The metrics to take note of are:
- Average position
- Cost per click
- Cost per lead
- CTR
- Impression share
- Cost per acquisition
- Conversion rate
To Sum It Up
A PPC competitor analysis is the best way to judge your campaign’s performance. And it’s easy to do. Just identify your competitors, analyze their ad copy, learn or guess their sales data and compare it with yours.
Author: Ramish Kamal Syed | Editor: Syed Hamza Ali | SEO Editor: Muhammad Waqas Aslam