Knowing what is going on with your PPC efforts is as important as knowing what your competitors are doing.
Monitoring your competitors’ activities can help you capitalize on their weaknesses, draw inspiration from their strengths and identify missed opportunities.
Rather than copying their actions, you collect information and insights to run more effective and efficient PPC campaigns.
Here is some guidance on how you can conduct your own PPC competitor analysis.
1. Check out the Google Ads Transparency Center
The Google Ads Transparency Center is a free and easy-to-use tool that allows you to search for a company and see what ads it has been running. (Only ads from verified advertisers are available in the Transparency Center.)
Above: An example of a search for ASOS.com via the Google Ads Transparency Center
Covering Search, Shopping, YouTube and more, it offers filters including date range, location and ad type so you can hone in on your competitors’ activities. It can even tell you when the last time a particular ad was shown.
This information is valuable as it allows you to read and see the type of copy and creatives your competitor uses, allowing you to get a better picture of their ad strategy.
It is particularly useful when analyzing their display ads, which can be tricky to catch in the wild.
Dig deeper: How to benchmark PPC competitors: The definitive guide
2. Roleplay a potential customer
While breaking PPC etiquette, clicking on an ad and exploring your competitors’ offerings from the perspective of a potential customer is a great way to see what kind of experience they are offering.
By taking the steps of a potential customer (i.e., making a search, seeing an ad, clicking on an ad, seeing the landing page, reading through their page content, etc.), you can take note of several important information, including:
What ad copy are they using? Is it relevant to the search term?
What landing page are they using? Is it PPC-specific or just their homepage?
What first impressions does the landing page give?
How easy is their website to navigate?
Is their CTA clear? What do they want PPC traffic to do?
This insight is useful for optimizing your campaigns and shaping your post-click strategy, ensuring that your PPC traffic is given the best experience possible once they are on your site.
We often focus on getting a click and not enough on what we can do to turn that visit into a conversion.
Look at what your competitor is doing with their post-click experience and see if there are any opportunities for you to improve yours.
3. Review your Auction Insights
Inside Google Ads, you’ll find a very helpful report called Auction Insights under the Insights and Reports section.