In the fiercely competitive online advertising sector, companies aspiring to excel must study their Google Ads competitors. Analyzing competitors' approaches can improve one's own ad campaigns, uncover opportunities, and reduce mistakes. Here's how to effectively research Google Ads competitors:
Identify Main Competitors
Before diving deep, it's essential to know who your competitors are, primarily in two categories:
Direct competitors: Businesses selling the same products or services. For example, if you sell organic skincare products, other organic skincare brands are your direct competitors.
Indirect competitors: Companies whose products or services differ, but target a similar audience. For instance, general beauty product companies might be indirect competitors.
Tools Used:
Google Search: Simply searching your target keywords can reveal who is competing in your field.
SEMrush, Ahrefs, SpyFu: These tools can show which businesses are competing for the same keywords as you.
Analyze Competitors' Ad Copy:
The information in competitors' Google ads can reveal much about their tactics. Pay attention to:
Title and description analysis: Observe the tone, structure, and key information. Do they emphasize price, quality, or exclusivity? Is there any emphasis on free shipping or special offers?
Call-to-action (CTA): Look at what CTAs they use to attract the audience. Common ones include "Buy Now," "Get a Quote," or "Free Trial."
Value proposition: Identify their unique selling points. Are there discounts, guarantees, or exclusive products? This can tell you what attracts your shared audience the most.
Research Competitors' Keyword Strategies:
Keywords are crucial for Google Ads campaigns, so understanding how competitors choose their keywords is vital.
Search intent: Determine whether competitors target transactional (e.g., "buy skincare products"), informational (e.g., "best skincare routines"), or navigational (related to the brand) queries. This can deepen your understanding of their strategies.
Keyword volume and difficulty: Look at which high-volume, high-conversion keywords competitors bid on. Understanding keyword difficulty can also reveal potential weaknesses in competitors' strategies.
Tools Used:
Google Ads Keyword Planner: This free tool helps analyze search volume and keyword competition.
Ahrefs or SEMrush: These tools provide competitors' keyword data, including cost-per-click (CPC) estimates and competitive analysis.
Review Competitors' Ad Extensions:
Ad extensions can make ads more appealing, and understanding how competitors use them can provide ideas for improvement.
Extension types: Check if competitors use additional links, promotional information, location, price, or app extensions. Each type adds value differently, such as providing direct product links, showcasing offers, or giving location information.
Strategy behind extensions: Analyze the purpose of the extensions. For example, do they use site links to direct traffic to multiple landing pages, or highlight free shipping with callout extensions?
Check Landing Pages:
The effectiveness of Google ads depends heavily on the landing pages. Investigating competitors' landing pages can provide deep insights into their conversion strategies.
Landing page design: Check if the design is user-friendly, the layout is clear, and the content is engaging. Do they use attractive headlines, product images, or testimonials?
Conversion elements: Look for potential customer generation forms, CTA buttons, chat support, or product videos. These conversion elements significantly impact ad success.
Information alignment: Ensure that the ad information matches the landing page information. Misalignment can dissatisfy users and increase bounce rates.
Evaluate Budget and Bidding Strategies:
Understanding competitors' budgets and bidding strategies can help you adjust your methods for maximal results.
Ad frequency: Monitor how often competitors' ads appear, giving you an idea of their daily or monthly spending.
Estimated expenditure: Tools like SpyFu and iSpionage can estimate how much competitors spend on Google ads, providing a benchmark for your campaigns.
Bidding strategies: See if competitors use manual or automatic bidding strategies, such as target CPA (cost per acquisition) or ROAS (return on ad spend). This can help you understand how they manage costs and conversions.
Understand Audience Targeting:
Successful Google Ads campaigns often rely on precise audience targeting. Analyzing how competitors target their ads can provide useful insights.
Geographic targeting: See if competitors focus on local, national, or global audiences.
Demographic and interest targeting: Understand what kind of audience groups competitors focus on. Are they targeting specific age groups, job titles, or interests?
Remarketing strategies: Check if competitors use remarketing ads to re-engage visitors who didn't convert initially. If they're not utilizing this strategy well, it could be an opportunity for your campaigns.
Track Competitors' Long-term Performance:
Competitors' strategies evolve, and tracking their performance changes can keep you informed.
Ad changes: Monitor how often they update their ads. Frequent updates may indicate they are optimizing for better results.
Seasonality: Observe if they increase ad activities during peak seasons or specific events. This can help you time your ad campaigns advantageously.
Tools Used:
Google Ads Auction Insights: This tool lets you see how you perform compared to other advertisers in the same auction.
SEMrush and Adbeat: These platforms provide historical data on advertising trends and effectiveness.
Identify Gaps and Opportunities:
One of the biggest benefits of researching competitors is finding areas they haven't covered, allowing you to capitalize on these gaps.
Missing keywords: Use tools like Ahrefs to find valuable keywords that competitors haven't bid on, especially less competitive long-tail keywords.
Unresolved customer needs: Review their ads and landing pages to see if there are gaps in addressing pain points. If they haven't adequately explained how their products solve problems, you can step in and deliver more effective messages.
Unique angles: Differentiate your ads with unique value propositions, such as more competitive pricing, better customer service, or faster delivery services.
Continuously Refine Your Research:
Researching competitors is not a one-time task. Online advertising changes rapidly, so you need to keep an eye on trends.
Stay updated: Regularly revisit your research to understand how competitors' strategies evolve. As their strategies change, yours should too.
Test and improve: Use the insights gained from analyzing competitors to experiment with your own ads. Test different headlines, CTAs, or ad formats, and optimize based on the results.
Benchmarking: Continuously compare your performance with competitors to refine your goals and key performance indicators (KPIs).
Conclusion
Researching your Google Ads competitors can give you a clearer view of the competitive landscape and help optimize your ad campaigns. By identifying main competitors, analyzing their ad copy, researching keyword strategies, reviewing landing pages, understanding their audience targeting, you can find ways to surpass them and achieve better results. As the market evolves, continuously refine your strategy, leveraging insights from competitors to maintain a leading position in your Google Ads campaigns.
