If you are confused when formulating advertising strategies, conducting competitive analysis can help you gain a deeper understanding of which strategies are effective and which are not in the market.
Semrush offers a full set of analytical tools to assist you, including identifying competitors, analyzing their activities on Google Ads, display ads, and Google Shopping, and generating PDF reports.
Identifying Competitors in Paid Search Ads
If you already know your competitors, you can skip this step and go directly to the second step. If you need help identifying competitors, the Advertising Competitors report can show websites that are most competitive with your existing Google Ads campaigns (if you have run them) in paid keyword rankings.
If your website has never run Google Ads campaigns before, you can also refer to the Organic Research Competitors report, which shows websites that compete with you in organic search keyword rankings. If these competitors also use Google Ads, these websites will be good subjects for analysis.
Google Ads Competition Analysis
Open the Advertising Research Positions report, enter the domain name of a competitor in the search bar, and this report will show the keywords displayed in the competitor's search ads.
Use the Ads Copies report to view the actual content of competitors' ads, including titles, descriptions, and keyword rankings, to gain a deeper understanding of their positioning strategies. You can also filter ads that contain a specific word or phrase through search.
Use the Advertising Research Pages report to determine which landing pages on the website the ad traffic is directed to. You can click on these pages and understand the objectives of their advertising campaigns based on the CTAs on their landing pages.
The Ads History report will show the monthly records of keywords in competitors' advertising campaigns over the past 12 months, as well as the highest ranking of each keyword. From this, you can discover seasonal changes or trends in the opponent's strategy.
Analysis of Display and Social Media Advertising Competition
Analyze competitors' digital marketing campaigns, you need to find out their best-performing display ads, video ads, and social media ads. Using AdClarity (located in the Semrush App Center) can explore competitors' advertising creatives.
In Estimated Expenditure, understand the total advertising expenditure and share of impressions of competitors, and evaluate the key performance indicators of their marketing campaigns (impressions, cost, views, brand voice share, clicks, etc.).
To understand the data performance of competitors, you can use Top Ads to view their best-performing ads and their audience engagement. Sort by exposure (the number of times the ad is displayed) to find the ads with the highest interaction rates.
Through Top Publishers, understand the main advertising publishing channels and traffic sources of competitors, and evaluate the value they bring.
Using Expenditure Breakdown, understand the investment of competitors in different channels.
View Display Ad Placement, evaluate the performance of ads on different websites, and provide references for your ad placements.
Utilize these insights to formulate advertising campaigns, you can maximize the audience reach and improve the effectiveness of your ads.
