S EVEN WA YS TO USE

COMPETITIVE PPC
INTELLIGENCE
T O DO MIN ATE YOUR COMPE TITIO N

BROUGH TO YOU BY

PAY-PER-CLICK ADVERTISING IS
INCREDIBLY COMPETITIVE.
Not only do you have direct competitors to compete with, but you
also have large advertisers like Amazon and Ask.com constantly
bidding for the exact terms you want searchers to click on.
Its competitive and cut-throat, and thats why you need competitive PPC intelligence on your side. Competitive PPC intelligence ensures you know exactly what your competition is up
to. If they test a new pricing model, add new keywords, or try a
new landing page, youll be the rst to know. It also helps you
create protable campaigns faster since you start campaigns with
terms that are already working for your competitors instead of
beginning from scratch over and over again for new campaigns.
So whether youre a PPC agency, an Enterprise advertiser that
spends $1,000,000+ dollars per month on AdWords, or a small
business owner, this short guide explains seven ways you can use
competitive PPC intelligence to get the advantage you need to
dominate your competition.

SEVEN WAYS TO USE COMPETITIVE PPC INTELLIGENCE TO DOMINATE THE COMPETITION | PAGE 01

Competitive PPC intelligence reveals who you're

competing against, what terms they're bidding on,
and approximately how much they're spending
per month on PPC advertising.

TOP 10 PPC COMPETITORS

$12,500,00
$10,000,000
$7,500,000
$5,000,000
$2,5000,000
$0

(a) microsoft.com, (b) godaddy.com, (c) top10bestwebsitehosting.com

(d) mediatemple.com, (e) google.com, (f) consumer-rankings.com
(g) azure.microsoft.com, (h) landi.com, (i) cloud.google.com

SEVEN WAYS TO USE COMPETITIVE PPC INTELLIGENCE TO DOMINATE THE COMPETITION | PAGE 02

#1: FIND OUT WHO YOURE COMPETING AGAINST

The rst way you can use competitive PPC intelligence is to nd out who
youre competing against. You can enter your URL into a tool like iSpionage
(something you can do for free by going to www.ispionage.com), and then
clicking on the Competitors tab. Once you click, youll see your companys top
PPC and SEO competitors.
In the example below, GoDaddy.coms top PPC competitors are Google.com,
Web.com, Cloud.Google.com, and 1and1.com. Their top SEO competitors are
1and1.com, NetworkSolutions.com, theSiteWizard.com, and HostGator.com.
PPC COMPETITORS
Overlap
Keywords

Keyword
Count

$8,031,440-$10,846,053

22,847

922,771

web.com

$2,002,710-$2,789,686

19,656

102,320

cloud.google.com

$3,213,183-$4,349,001

15,379

47,778

1and1.com

$1,680,999-$2,209,022

13,489

38,557

Advertiser

Monthly Budget

google.com

ORGANIC COMPETITORS
Website

SEO Trac Value

Overlap
Keywords

Keyword
Count

support.godaddy.com

$172,816

6,197

6,683

networksolutions.com

$1,871,641

4,204

11,583

thesitewizard.com

$1,545,748

3,824

9,034

hostgator.com

$606,175

3,793

17,444

1and1.com

$2,820,895

3,610

10,630

SEVEN WAYS TO USE COMPETITIVE PPC INTELLIGENCE TO DOMINATE THE COMPETITION | PAGE 03

So how do you use this data for your benet? For starters, its always a
good idea to know who youre up against when it comes to PPC advertising,
something Sun Tzu explains best in The Art of War when he says:

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the
result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy,
for every victory gained, you will also suer a defeat. If you know
neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
We could elaborate on this more when it comes to PPC, but the main point is
thisknowing who youre competing against lays the foundation for the
rest of the steps we cover in this guide. So instead of going into further
detail, well move along to the next step to explain more about how competitive PPC intelligence gives you the edge you need when it comes to creating
more protable PPC campaigns.

SEVEN WAYS TO USE COMPETITIVE PPC INTELLIGENCE TO DOMINATE THE COMPETITION | PAGE 04

#2: IDENTIFY NEW, PROFITABLE KEYWORDS

The next step is to nd new, protable keywords for your campaigns by
spying on your competitors. This might seem ever so slightly shady, but its
not since its all publicly available information and something thousands of
savvy advertisers use on a regular basis.
To nd new keywords with competitive PPC research, conduct a search with
iSpionage and then click on a competitor from the list we mentioned in point
#1 or else enter a new competitor into the iSpionage search box. Were going
to use 1and1.com as an example for how to swipe new, protable keywords
from your competitors.

1and1.com

Overlap

Keyword

Count
US Keywords SEARCH

The rst thing we see is that 1and1.com is spending approximately $1.5 million
per month on their AdWords campaign and are bidding on 54,529 PPC
keywords. Thats a lot of keywords to sort through, but its also a great source
of keyword ideas for your campaigns.
You can begin the sorting process by clicking on the Unique Keywords tab so
youre only looking at keywords that are unique between your campaign and
your competitors. Overlap Keywords shows which terms both you and your
competitors are bidding on, and Total Keywords shows all of the keywords your
competitors are bidding on. By clicking on Unique Keywords, youll narrow the
list to just the ones your competitors are bidding on that you are not.

SEVEN WAYS TO USE COMPETITIVE PPC INTELLIGENCE TO DOMINATE THE COMPETITION | PAGE 05

Unique
Keywords

Overlap
Keywords

Advertiser

Monthly Budget

google.com

$8,031,440-$10,846,053

911,974

25,405

web.com

$2,002,710-$2,789,686

51,325

20,025

cloud.google.com

$3,213,183-$4,349,001

81,240

15,615

1and1.com

$1,680,999-$2,209,022

33,567

14,456

After doing this, you can further narrow the results with factors such as
iSpionages Keyword Eectiveness Index (a proprietary score we use to sort
the most eective keyword for each advertiser based on how long the
keyword has been shown and when it was last seen) and search volume.
Overlap
Keywords

Keyword
Count

Were going to sort this example by keywords with a 90+ KEI score and a

search volume of 1,000 or higher. This leaves us with a list of 643 keywords, a
much more manageable number that can be exported for further sorting
before adding these new keywords to our example campaign.

Keyword

Ads

KEI

CPC ($)

Average Search Volume

1and1

97,222

3.8

2,740,000

1&1

97,222

2.4

4,090,000

oneandone

97,222

0.69

60,500

1 website design

97

0.5

5,400

make your own email address

97

0.5

4,4000

email account register

97

0.5

22,200

SEVEN WAYS TO USE COMPETITIVE PPC INTELLIGENCE TO DOMINATE THE COMPETITION | PAGE 06

#3: WRITE AD COPY THAT STANDS OUT AND GETS CLICKED

Ad copy that stands out is one of the most important pieces of any
successful PPC campaign. If it doesnt stand out, your click-through-rate (CTR)
will suer, which means your Quality Score will go down, which in turn increases your cost per click. On the ip side, ad copy that generates a high CTR raises
your Quality Score and lowers your cost per click (CPC). So how do you boost
your CTR? The easiest way is to write ad copy that stands out, gets noticed,
and generates clicks.
The best way to stand out is to study what ads your competitors are using,
something thats easy to do with iSpionages Keyword & Domain Research tool.
You can click on a competitor, and then get immediate access to a list of all of
their ads. You can also search by keyword and then study the ads competitors are using for each individual keyword. This is a great way to get more
information about the competitive landscape and to learn how to ensure your
ads stand out from the competition. You can also sort by our proprietary Ad
Eectiveness Index (AEI) to nd out which ads work the best and which ones
you should study the most closely.

Ad Copy

Destination URL

$0.01 Web Hosting - HostGator.com

http://hostgator.com/promo/penny-oer.shtml

Scalable, Secure Web Hosting. Try Our

Other Keywords: 131

Award-Winning Service Now!

www.hostgator.com/1Penny

TOP 10 WEB HOSTING PICKS Consumer-Rankings.com

We reviewed The Good, Bad, & Ugly.
View Our Top 10 Choices 100% Free

http://centertrk.com/?ch=16554475483&ad=3197
1884163$cr=49351680$sc=search&kw=web%20...
Other Keywords: 1

www.consumer-rankings.com/Hosting

SEVEN WAYS TO USE COMPETITIVE PPC INTELLIGENCE TO DOMINATE THE COMPETITION | PAGE 07

#4: OPTIMIZE LANDING PAGES

The next step is to use competitive PPC intelligence to optimize your
landing pages, a point at which iSpionages landing page surveillance feature
comes in handy.
With landing page surveillance from iSpionage, you enter your top PPC competitors, and we automatically save screenshots of their landing pages for easy
review. You can then scroll through the landing pages to learn what oers and
landing page strategies your competitors are employing, and youll also get
daily alerts with any new landing pages your competitors oer.
So how does this help? First and foremost, it helps by keeping you updated on
new oers and strategies your competitors are trying out. Youll be the rst to
know when they try something new, and youll also be the rst to know when
they pick a winning landing page or decide to end one strategy and try another.
In the example on the next page, Volusion calls out Shopify on their landing
page by saying that Volusion customers earn four times more on average than
Shopify customers. Landing page monitoring from iSpionage makes sure you
know if your competitors are using this type of strategy to steal your customers while bidding on your own brand term in AdWords, Bing, or Yahoo.
Youll also get an endless stream of new landing page ideas in case you
ever nd yourself stuck when it comes to guring out what to test next. Landing page monitoring makes sure your design team never runs out of ideas by
delivering the latest landing pages in your industry to your inbox rst thing
every morning.

SEVEN WAYS TO USE COMPETITIVE PPC INTELLIGENCE TO DOMINATE THE COMPETITION | PAGE 08

KEYWORDS: shopify

Considering Their Shop? Volusion Stores Sell 4x More

Considering Their Shop? Think About Transaction Fees

www.volusion.com/vs_shopify

www.volusion.com/vs_shopify

No Transaction Fees. Get a Trial!

Earn More Revenue. Get a Free Trial!

SEVEN WAYS TO USE COMPETITIVE PPC INTELLIGENCE TO DOMINATE THE COMPETITION | PAGE 09

#5: UNCOVER YOUR COMPETITORS PPC STRATEGIES

Not only does competitive PPC intelligence keep you updated on your
competitors new oers and other changes, but it also helps you to uncover
your competitors PPC strategies by showing you everything theyre doing
starting with the keywords theyre bidding on and ending with the landing
pages theyre running. This clues you in to exactly what their campaign structure looks like so you can get new ideas for your own campaigns.
For example, by spying on your competition, you might learn how theyre
grouping their keywords and what oer theyre advertising for each particular
keyword group. This gives you ideas about how best to group your keywords
and what types of oers might work for your campaigns.
In the example on the next page, Wordstream is showing a landing page about
keyword research for terms related to keyword research. This happens to be a
strategy taught in PPC marketing 101 and reveals what youre competition is
up to while also giving you new ideas for your own campaigns.
Landing page screenshots from our Campaign Monitor tool makes it easy to
quickly study your competitors campaign structure to get new ideas for
improving your own.

SEVEN WAYS TO USE COMPETITIVE PPC INTELLIGENCE TO DOMINATE THE COMPETITION | PAGE 10

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SEVEN WAYS TO USE COMPETITIVE PPC INTELLIGENCE TO DOMINATE THE COMPETITION | PAGE 11

#6: STAY ONE STEP AHEAD OF YOUR COMPETITION

Everyone wants to stay one step ahead of their competition, something
Campaign Monitor by iSpionage makes it easier to do.
With Campaign Monitor, you get daily email alerts whenever competitors
add new keywords, write new ad copy, and test new landing pages. This
means you not only know what theyre up to presently, but you also know
whenever they make a change and try something new.
Say, for example, one of your competitors tries a new landing page like the
one on the next page for Valentines Day. As soon as they start using it,
youll know, and youll be able to decide what type of oer to run in order to
counter their oer. Should you run a discount or some other type of promotional campaign to stand out and get your ads clicked? Knowing exactly what
your competitors are doing with a quick glance at the landing pages
theyre running makes these types of strategy decisions a whole lot
easier to make.

SEVEN WAYS TO USE COMPETITIVE PPC INTELLIGENCE TO DOMINATE THE COMPETITION | PAGE 12

#7: KEEP TABS ON YOUR AD AGENCY

A good agency adds new keywords and runs new landing page tests on a
consistent basis. If not, they might not be doing their job as well as they could be.
With Campaign Monitor, not only do you know precisely when competitors
make changes to their campaigns, but you also know what changes your
ad agency is making to your own. And if they arent making any changes or
change something you dont like, you can always send an email to nd out
whats going on.
The real benet of Campaign Monitor is that it gives you complete visibility into your own campaign as well as those of your competitors. Youll
know if your impression share or average ad position dips compared to the
competition, and youll also know exactly how often your agency is testing new
ad copy and landing pages. Hopefully, youre agency is doing an amazing job
managing your campaign, but in case theyre not, it cant hurt to use Campaign
Monitor to keep close tabs and make sure your agency is giving your account
the attention they should be.

SEVEN WAYS TO USE COMPETITIVE PPC INTELLIGENCE TO DOMINATE THE COMPETITION | PAGE 14

We hope this guide has helped you learn more about how competitive PPC intelligence gives advertisers a nearly unfair advantage over the competition.
To learn more, visit our PPC marketing blog at blog.ispionage.com
or go to ispionage.com to take iSpionage for a spin and try our
service for free.

SEVEN WAYS TO USE COMPETITIVE PPC INTELLIGENCE TO DOMINATE THE COMPETITION | PAGE 15

Get competitors' protable keywords and

landing pages delivered to your inbox.