Google owns the world’s largest display network, and Google’s advertising campaigns reach up to 80% of the world’s internet users. A well-crafted, optimised AdWords advertising campaign can increase your ROI by 200%, regardless of your industry.
Even though only 3% of small businesses are currently using Google’s pay-per-click advertising service, knowing what your competitors are doing for their AdWords campaigns will help you optimise yours. And better yet, knowing what keywords you need to use will differentiate your business from theirs.
Regardless of what type of advertising you’re doing, you must have a good grasp of what strategies and techniques your competitors are using. This will cut down on a lot of the guesswork when you’re formulating future marketing strategies and business plans. If your competitors are advertising on Google, you probably should, too.
By
gaining a competitive edge over your rivals with your Google AdWords campaign, you’ll see an increase in your brand awareness, grow your customer base, and increase your bottom line.
Check out the following three ways to find out what keywords your competition is using, and how you can best utilise them for the maximum return on your AdWords campaign investment.
First, how do AdWords campaigns work?
Well, the simplified version goes something like this:
You create a compelling headline and ad copy for your product or service. You decide on which keywords and phrases you want to display for on the Google Display Network, or GDN. Next, you’ll bid on these phrases and words. Once your quality score is decided, your ad will begin to display for your keywords and phrases once a potential customer enters them into the search engine.
The quality score is the quality and relevance of your keywords and pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Your quality score determines the cost-per-click (CPC), multiplied by your maximum bid, that will determine your ad rank in the ad auction process.
While the headline and copy are extremely important metrics, keywords and keyword phrases are arguably the most important part of your ad. If they aren’t optimised, your ad will not display or will display to the wrong leads. Without a display or an unoptimised display, you can’t even begin to track your conversion rate, because you won’t have one.
Fortunately, there are several free tools you can use to track your keywords, PPC rate, and what keywords your competition is using.
- Keyword Planner
Keyword Planner is an excellent, free tool that will help you search and formulate keyword phrases. You can also find historical statistics and estimated traffic forecasts for specific keywords.
Most of the time, people use Keyword Planner to perform keyword research for their business. But, this tool is also useful for finding out which keywords and phrases your competition is using.
So, how can you use Keyword Planner for espionage purposes? By putting a few of your competitors’ URLs into the search bar. The results will show you what keywords they are using, and it can give you some excellent ideas for ones you can utilise for your personal AdWords campaigns.
- Tag Clouds
Tag clouds show you what the commonly used words and phrases are on a website. Best of all, they are free. Head on over to your competitor’s site and check out their tag cloud. Here, you’ll see exactly what words they commonly use on their website. Depending on what type of tag cloud they’re using, the bigger the word, the more common it is.
If your competitor’s site does not have a tag cloud, don’t worry; you can use software called TagCrowd to find out what keywords would go into a tag cloud if your competitor had one. By entering the competitors URL into Tag Crowd’s search bar, you’ll be able to see the most common and frequent words used on their website.
- Auction Insights
Auction Insights is the perfect tool for finding out who else is bidding on your keywords and phrases. With your free auction insights report, you can see impression shares, average position, overlap rate, position above rate, and the top page rate that each of your competitors has on a keyword.
Auction Insights is available for Search and Shopping campaigns that meet a minimum threshold of activity. You can create reports for keywords, ad groups, and campaigns. You can also further segment the results by time and device.
With auction insights, you’ll see exactly what keywords your competition is using and how they are performing. You’ll know who your biggest competition is, and better manage your bids on your keywords with highly-detailed, and beneficial information. Without it, you’re grasping in the dark, unaware of how the competition’s keywords are faring against your own. Furthermore, you can save money on bids that aren’t working, and increase your investment in ones that are, improving your return on investment.
It’s incredibly important for you to optimise your keywords for the greatest ROI. While these free tools are an effective way to keep an eye on your competition and see what keywords they are using, it still takes a lot of time to learn and use these tools efficiently. It’s not something you want to leave to chance because you are understandably too busy to pursue it. But, a highly qualified and knowledgeable AdWords professional can solve that problem for you.
The team at Australian Internet Advertising knows exactly how to figure out what your competitors are doing for their campaigns, and how to optimise your keywords. With our expertise, you’ll save time and money on your AdWords campaigns, and will quickly see a return on your investment. Contact us today at Australian Internet Advertising and get an edge over your competitors with a professional ads campaign that will increase your brand awareness and bottom line.
