Competitor analysis ordinarily forms a key part of any marketing activity, however seemingly, when it comes too PPC, it sometimes gets forgotten. 

All too often I see campaigns with impeccable structure, great keyword selection, judicious use of match types and negative matches and yet; they stumble at the final hurdle. Their ads just aren’t standing up (or standing out) versus the competition.

Consequently, as their click through rates are poor, their quality score is suffering and they’re paying over the odds for their clicks. Bad times.

So, just how good are your ads?

Check out the competition:

So you need to look at your ads in situ – here you’ll be able to see what the competition are doing, and indeed how your ads stack up. Now, you don’t want to look at them live, as you’ll be generating impressions and no clicks, which might hurt your quality score even more. Google have a handy solution – the ad preview tool.

So check you’ve selected the correct geo-targeting options so you can see your ads alongside your competitors, pop in your search query and you’re good to go. Here are some things to look out for:

Offers:
 

Click to enlarge

I’ve chosen to use ‘double glazing’ to illustrate my point as it’s a very competitive ‘offer driven’ sector. On the page you’ll see ads featuring 40% off, 35% off, 70% off, 65% off, buy one get one free, etc, etc.

Now, imagine that you’re offering 35% off – I’m guessing that your click through rates might just suffer in the face of such competition.

So what do you do? Assuming you can’t offer 70% off to stay ahead of the competition, what should you say instead?

My view would be to create a new ad to test. Avoid the whole x% off messaging altogether as it looks like you can’t compete. Instead make a general mention of low pricing, or a sale, then focus on another key benefit – e.g. interest free credit; no quibble guarantees; lower energy bills; etc. Test it versus the current ad, and see what happens.

Humour:

 

Click to enlarge

Alternatively, you might look for other ways to make your ad stand out versus the competition. Above I’ve shown an example of a search for ppc agencies. Now to my mind, whilst the ads shown are fine, they’re a little bit dry for my taste. Therefore, when I was creating a campaign for Gravytrain I elected to inject a little humour into the mix. Now clearly, depending on the product or service you’re promoting that might not be the way to go, but we’ve seen some success, so I would suggest a test.

Be Topical:

Again here this won’t necessarily be applicable to all products and services, however sometimes mentioning something topical can make your ad stand out versus the competition. We tested a set of ads which referenced the credit crunch for one of our insurance clients, which saw significantly higher click through rates than their previous best performing ad. Interestingly conversion rates also held up well.

 

Whatever you decide to do, we wouldn’t recommend making wholesale changes to your ads – instead leave your best performer live and create an alternative and see how it works for you. In order to give your new ad some exposure you’ll need to select: ‘Rotate – show ads more evenly’ within the ad serving options of your campaign settings.

Hopefully you’ve found this useful – if you’ve some additional tips you’d care to share please let me know in the comments.

Happy Friday! Here are my picks of the best blog posts in search for the week ending 17/7/09.

SEO

Looking to build links with relevant blogs in your niche? Read Lucy’s guide on finding niche blogs over at SEOmoz.

Are your title tags in good order? Check out Marc’s guide to optimising title tags over at Bruce Clay Australasia.

PPC

Thinking about restructuring your Adwords campaigns? Be sure to pop over to PPC Hero and read their killer post on the affect of moving keywords in Adwords.

Social Media

Jason Murphy writes an open letter to United Airlines explaining how they might deal with their current reputation management issue - he’s come up with some fabulous ideas, it’s well worth a read.

Blogging

Think writing Guest Posts for other blogs is a waste of your precious time? Think again – read Lisa’s take on the benefits of guest blogging over at the Outspoken Media blog. 

Aaaannnnd Finally, Friday’s Funny

This week’s funny comes courtesy of Dilbert – enjoy & have a lovely weekend!

 

 

Image credit faeryboots

Hello there, here are my picks of the best blog posts in search for the week ending 10/7/09.

SEO

Joanna Butler talks Gorillas, Meerkats & Michael Jackson and the importance of generating ‘buzz’ around your brand.

PPC

Over at Search Engine Land, Doug Drees comes up trumps once again with his excellent tips on Ad Scheduling to maximise your PPC results.

Social Media

Still not quite got your head around link bait? Stephan Spencer explains all.

Is that celeb you’re following on Twitter the real deal? Ciaran talks about the problem of hoax accounts on Twitter.

Blogging

Should your CEO be Blogging? Lisa says no. Thought provoking, funny, and so true… but you didn’t hear me say that – ok?

Aaaannnnd Finally, Friday’s Funny

Wondering what SEO’s do on Twitter all day long? Well, after a long day, they like nothing more than to talk Princess Bride

Have a lovely weekend!

 

Image credit Jonathan Beard

Hello there, apologies for the delay in getting this post live!

Here are my picks of the best blog posts in search for the week ending 3/7/09.

SEO

Over at SEOmoz, Rob highlights the use  of  small sites for link building - essential reading for both in-house and agency link builders alike.

PPC

Are you prioritising PPC tasks effectively? Andrew Goodman looks at the Long Tail of Paid Search Account Effort over at Search Engine Land.

Meanwhile, over at PPC Hero Andrew explains PPC Metrics which all Campaign Managers Should Understand - an excellent post for those new to managing PPC campaigns.

Social Media

If you’re starting a corporate twitter account should you use a logo or a picture of an employee as the avatar? Great thoughts from Kristy Bolsinger – also check out the discussion in the comments.

Stuck for link bait ideas? Check out Lucy’s top ten list over at Distilled.

Blogging

I just love a ‘how to’ post. Wanna know how to add a custom default gravatar to your blog? Check out Sugarae’s post on the Outspoken Media blog.

Aaaannnnd Finally, Friday’s (ahem Tuesday’s) Funny

Tango (a soft drink brand) have launched a new advertising campaign, and they are really tickling me – here’s my favourite:

To see more of their really rather wonderful campaign posters clickety click.

Have a lovely week – I’ll be back on Friday

Welcome to the final part of our introduction to PPC. If you’ve not already done so you may like to look over parts one, two, three, four and five.

So, by now you should have your account structure nicely planned out – it’s now time to write your ads and get that campaign live.

Back in part three we talked you through setting up your account, so you’ll now need to either login to that account, or if you’ve not done so already create your account.

Step One – Targeting Languages & Location

First you will be asked which languages, and which locations you wish to target. So, pick a campaign and input the relevant details.

Step Two – Creating Adverts

You’ll then be asked to create your first ad. This feels a little backward, as you haven’t inputted any keywords yet. Don’t worry – just pick an adgroup – you’ll be asked to input the keywords after you’ve created your ad.

You’ll see that you have a strict character limit of 25 for the headline, and 35 for the following two lines. Ultimately it’s all about targeting. You want your ad copy to match your keywords as closely as possible. Try to:

1. Mention the keywords targeted
2. Make the ad relevant
3. Add in an offer or call to action to encourage people to click

It’s not a bad idea to have a look at other advertisers to make sure that your ad is competitive – for example offering a 10% discount for online orders sounds great, until your competitor starts offering a 20% discount.

It’s all about testing and learning. You won’t know what works until you try. Always create a minimum of two ads for each adgroup so you can see which ad performs better.

Step Three – Keywords

Now you can cut and paste the keywords which relate to the ad you’ve just created directly from word or excel. Or type them in if you’ve formulated your keyword lists on paper.

Step Four – Pricing

Again here – this is a little confusing - you’ll need to input the daily budget for the campaign, (i.e. the amount you want to spend on all of the adgroups in the campaign) and the maximum cost per click you are willing to pay for the keywords in your adgroup.

Right now I would recommend that you do NOT bid on the content network. To do this, simply leave the box marked CPC Content Bid blank.

Step Five – Billing

You’ll then be asked for your billing details. Again, I know this feels kind of strange – you haven’t finished setting up yet have you? Don’t worry. Just complete your billing details, and you’ll then get the opportunity to continue to build your adgroups and/or further campaigns.

 

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

You should now find yourself in the Adwords interface. You’ll now need to input all of your other adgroups and campaigns. Until you’re 100% ready to go I’d recommend pausing all campaigns – you can then go live once everything is inputted.

 

Track Conversions…

If your customers can convert online, it’s really important to track this. If you’re using the new adwords interface, click on the tools tab, then on to conversion tracking. If you’re using the old interface, you can click directly on conversion tracking it’s the fourth option on the campaign management tab.

 

Don’t Go Live Yet! Top Tips to Save the Pennies…

When you’re starting out, it’s easy to blow your budget on clicks you don’t want – avoid this by following our top tips:

1. Make sure you’re geo-targeting the right area – if you’re based in the UK, you probably don’t want US clicks – check your campaign settings
2. Check that you’re not on the content network (unless you want to be) – again check your campaign settings
3. Add negative keywords – remember when we did keyword research in part four we were left with unrelated terms? Add these as negative keywords to prevent your ads from appearing for unrelated terms – you can add negative keywords at a campaign or an ad group level.
4. Consider keyword matching options – for further details see Google’s explanation

Ok, so you’re good to go? Unpause those campaigns and make it live!

 

One Final Note

Remember – everything you’re doing right now is a test. You’ll find that some keywords work better than others, and likewise some ads work better than others. The key is to test and learn, then refine your campaign accordingly.

 

 

Image credit Miss Turner