What are Your Competitors Doing?
If you want your PPC advertising campaign to succeed, it will be important to keep tabs on your competition. In doing so, you will be able to figure out which keywords are successful and see how they are bidding. Also, you will be able to learn from their experiences.
You can learn from competitors in a number of ways. Firstly you can check on the keywords they are using. There are software programs that can tell you this. If you run a number of campaigns, or are selling a popular item, you may want to invest in this software. Once you are aware of the keywords competitors are using you can try them out and add variants.
The next learning experience comes from analyzing their bidding on specific keywords. By knowing the competition’s bids, you will be able to calculate a bid which will land you prime positioning for your ad. Remember though, try not to get into bidding wars with the competitors. This can get pricey and sometimes send you well beyond your budget. If a price gets too steep you can always try a variation of that keyword. This will most likely save you some money and can still bring you plenty of sales.
The next advantage you can gain is by keeping tabs on your competitors’ ads. By using the preview tool provided by Google you can see what others’ ads include. While I strongly discourage you from copying information straight from their ads, you can gain valuable ideas by examining their headlines, benefits, and call to action. By examining these aspects from a buyer’s standpoint you will be able to see what works and what doesn’t.
The final thing I recommend looking at is the competition’s landing pages. By following the links in their ads, you can get a good sense of quality layouts and presentation as well as the benefits and bonuses being offered.
Looking at what your competitors are doing with their campaigns should help to inspire you with ideas for your own. With these new ideas combined with your own original ideas in your arsenal, your PPC advertising campaign can be reborn as a much stronger incarnation of itself. A successful manager knows the importance of keeping up with their competitors and making improvements accordingly. No matter how great your campaign is, there is always room for improvement.
Remember if you do not learn from your competitors you will miss out on a lot of valuable tips. You may be quite sure that they will be watching and learning from you. So do not let any opportunity slide by to take a look at your competitors and get free ideas to perfect your PPC advertising campaigns and improve your profits.