The Complete Guide to PPC Competitor Analysis

In PPC advertising, you need to know the strengths of your competitors, weaknesses, strategies — just about everything that they do — to defeat them. When you discover their targeted keywords, their bidding strategies, and ad copies, you will be able to find lapses in their approach and work out yours to outwit and outperform them.

To do so, you’ll need a lot of insights, and you’ll gain them with PPC competitor analysis.

Throughout this guide, you will learn how to:

• Identify your PPC competitors
• Analyze key metrics to understand competitor performance.
• Make use of competitor analysis for recommendations to enhance your own PPC strategies.
• Avoid common mistakes many businesses make during competitor analysis.

By regularly checking on your competitors, you’ll be able to better tailor your ads, attract more high-value leads, and increase return on investment (ROI).

 

What Is PPC Competitor Analysis?

PPC competitor analysis is the process of identifying and analyzing the PPC strategies that your competitors use to better understand their paid advertising.

In PPC competitor analysis, you will research all the significant aspects of your competitors’ ad campaigns to comprehend their approach. 

Other than just competitor keywords, ad copy, and bidding strategies, you should:

• Look at the competitor landing pages to understand how they design them and what kind of messages they will use to drive them to a desired action.
• Check if your PPC competition is using ad extras, such as site links, call buttons or location details. These can make ads much more visible and give people added reasons to click on them.
• Look at who they are targeting with their ad: location, age group, device. It helps you understand their targeting strategy in order to help you target your PPC campaigns.
• Analyze how much they would be spending and how frequently their PPC ads pop up versus yours.
• Check when they are running their ads. Are they focusing on certain times of the day or week when more people are online? This can help you decide when to run your ads for better results.
• See what ad platforms they are on: Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, or social media ads, because they are where your audience is.
• Check if the competitors are using negative keywords so their ad does not get displayed for wrong searches. Use the same/similar words to enhance your PPC account and save your money from being spent on worthless clicks.

Why Competitive Analysis Is Crucial for PPC Success

PPC competitor analysis allows you to make wiser decisions about where to invest, how to shift your tactics, and how to enhance overall performance in the PPC landscape. Without it, you are operating blind while your competitors may be capitalizing on your missed opportunities.

Some of the biggest benefits of PPC and reasons you should perform a PPC competitor analysis include:

• Keyword discovery: Find out competitors’ keywords and discover the valuable ones they use. You will be able to discover new keywords that have not been used or considered for your campaign so far.
• Better bidding strategies: The more you know about your competitor’s bidding strategy, the better decisions you can make in order to reduce your overall cost and improve ad visibility.
• Enhancing your ad copy: Analyzing your competitors’ ad copy can help you create more compelling and engaging ads, leading to higher click-through rates and conversions.
• Landing page optimization: By researching your competitors’ landing pages, one can understand how to effectively design a landing page for conversions that ultimately enhance the user’s experience and improve conversion rates.
• Gaps in the market: PPC competitor research will help you find out where your competitors are weak or not targeting; you can achieve market share that they have missed.
• Improve campaign performance metrics: Comparing performance metrics — CTR, conversion rate, and CPC — will help you fine-tune your campaigns to outcompete the PPC competition and, in turn, make better ROAS. 
• Refining audience targeting: It will help you in better targeting by increasing your ad relevance and driving more conversions with the strategy of determining how the competitors segment their audiences.
• Budget optimization: Knowing the spend and impression share of your competitors allows you to allocate your budget effectively so that your ads are gaining just enough exposure without waste.

For instance, if your competitive PPC analysis shows that a rival is getting most of the traffic for a certain keyword, you should explore their ad strategy. Maybe their PPC ads have better headlines or more persuasive calls to action. By adjusting your ad copy to be more direct or offering a better promotion, you could increase your conversion rate.

How To Identify Your PPC Competitors

Identifying the proper PPC competitors is a very important first step in your competitive PPC analysis that helps you focus on businesses that are in direct competition with you in the PPC landscape.

The first thing you need to do, before being able to analyze your competitors’ PPC strategies, is figure out who your competitors actually are.

You can have direct and indirect rivals:

• Direct competitors are businesses selling the same or very similar products or services. They’re bidding on the same keywords and competing for the same audience in the same geographic area.
• Indirect competitors may not be offering the exact same products as you do, but they may be using the same keywords in their PPC ads.

Methods to uncover PPC competitors include:

Manual searches

One of the easiest ways to discover who your competitors are is by manually searching for keywords you target in your pay-per-click campaigns. Using search engines like Google, look up overall keywords or phrases about your product or service. 

The businesses that show up in the paid advertising section are your pay-per-click competitors. It will help you understand which companies are actually fighting for the same audience as your company.

Use tools

Detection PPC competitor analysis tools make this process easier and faster. In the insert box, using Semrush, Spyfu, or even Google Ads Auction Insights, place your keywords and find out what companies bid for those exact or similar ones. This will show you their ads, what kind of landing page they have, and much more. Tools will save you hours of time compared to searching by hand and provide a fuller picture of your PPC competitors.

• Semrush: Enter your website’s URL or your main keywords to show a list of competitors that are bidding on keywords like yours. You are also able to track their ad performance over time.
• SpyFu: It shows you who is bidding on your keywords, what keywords they use, and how much they spend. The tool also provides them a peep into the historical ad data of a competitor that helps one to see what worked in the past for their competition.
• Google Ads Auction Insights: Native to Google Ads, this tool gives you an overview of how frequently your ads run against other advertisers, providing impression share data. It’s nice to see who your most frequent competitors are.

Analyzing search engine results

You can also look at organic search results to get a view of the indirect competitors. These are businesses that might not be running any Pay Per Click ads but are competing with you in the same market using organic search. Knowing the direct and indirect competitors provides full visibility of the competitive landscape.

By using a mix of these methods and PPC competitor analysis tools, you’ll be able to uncover both direct and indirect competitors in the PPC arena.

Key Metrics to Analyze in PPC Competitive Research

While running a competitive PPC analysis, consider the key metrics of your competitor that will give you insights into his performance. These metrics will help you understand strengths, weaknesses, and the overall strategy.

Here are those most relevant to consider:

 

Click-Through Rate (CTR)	Measures how often people click on an ad after seeing it. High CTR means the ad is engaging and relevant. The average CTR for Google Ads is between 4 and 6%. Checking competitors’ CTR helps improve your ad strategy.
Conversion rate	Shows the percentage of people who take action after clicking the ad, like making a purchase. A high rate means the landing page is effective. The average conversion rate for PPC is 2.35%, while for Google Ads it amounts to 3.75%. Studying competitors’ rates can help improve your conversions.
Cost-per-Click (CPC)	Reveals how much a competitor is paying for each click. Higher CPC on valuable keywords shows strong investment. This helps you decide if you should bid higher or find cheaper keywords. The average CPC for Google Ads is $2, although it can vary between $1 and $30 per click.
Return On the Ad Spend (ROAS)	Measures how much revenue is earned for each dollar spent on ads. High ROAS indicates a profitable ad strategy. Comparing ROAS helps maximize your own returns. The average ROAS for Google Ads is 2:1 ($2 gain per $1 spend), while for Google Search Network, it can go up to 8:1.

 

You will be able to get this information by using some PPC competitor research tools, such as Semrush, SpyFu, or Auction Insights via Google Ads. These tools give performance metrics tracking and show your competitor campaigns.

These metrics interpreted will get you to a point where you can actually adjust your strategy to outcompete and perform better in the PPC arena.

Step-by-Step Process for Conducting a PPC Competitor Analysis

Now that you have identified the competitors, it is time to delve a little deeper and analyze their PPC strategies. The competitive PPC analysis process includes several key steps, from collecting data to applying changes that will help you stay competitive.

Step 1: Spying on Competitors’ Advertisements and Keywords

First, fetch the most general data about the competitors’ PPC campaigns:

• Check out competitor ads. Perform searches for the target keywords in search engines, such as Google or other contextual advertising platforms.
• Using tools such as Semrush or SpyFu, find out which PPC keywords your competitors are bidding on. They can show you how well their keywords have performed over time so that you know which ones are worth adding to your campaigns.

Step 2: Competitive Ad Copy and Creative Research

Discover how your competitors design their advertisements, both text and visual. Take your time to:

• Analyze ad copy: headline, description, and CTAs used in their PPC ads. Are there any promotional language, emotional appeals, or deals that drive your attention?
• If they run visual or display ads, check their creative design. A well-designed and attractive ad may generate more clicks and conversions, which could explain why their PPC campaigns are performing well.

Step 3: Analyze Competitors’ Landing Pages

Then, check out the competitors’ landing pages where their ads are leading; this is a very crucial element of their funnel and has a direct relation to conversion rates.

Focus on:

• Page design: How intuitive and catchy is their landing page?
• Call to Action: What is the action they would like this user to take, and how apparent is the call?
• Page load speed: Because a poor loading page hurts conversions, check how quickly competitors’ pages load.

Step 4: Competitors Audience Targeting Analysis

Probably one of the most overlooked areas of PPC analysis is audience targeting, where competitors might be targeting different demographics, geographies, or interests, thus giving you a view into markets you’re not tapping.

• Using Google Ads Auction Insights, determine if the competitors are targeting specific age groups, locations, or device types.
• Some competitors may be running remarketing campaigns, targeting users who have already interacted with their site. Look for signs of this in their display or social ads.

Step 5: Monitor Ad Timing and spend of your competitors

Timing and spending behind ads are some very good ways to get at a competitor’s strategy. Ask yourself:

• Are they having more ads at a certain time of the day or week? Certain industries are performing well at specific times, which may be utilized by the competitors.
• With SpyFu or Semrush, you can estimate the rough amounts competitors spend on their pay-per-click ad advertising. Aggressive bids would suggest that there is a higher amount of money being spent. On the other hand, low spend may indicate it is an efficient strategy with low costs.

Step 6: Draw Actionable Insights and Refine Your Strategy

Finally, you need to take everything that you learned from the PPC competitor analysis and implement it in your campaigns:

• Add high-performing keywords that drive competitively and eliminate low-performing ones.
• Inspired by the top ads of competitors, refine ad copies to make them engaging or relevant.
• Tweak your landing pages based on your inspiration from knowing what competitors have on their pages. Whether it is about a better deal, page loading speed, or ease of navigation, it counts.

How to Use Competitor Insights to Optimize Your PPC Campaigns

Once you have information from your PPC competitor research, it’s time to put those lessons learned to work to enhance your campaigns. When you truly understand what competitors are doing well and where they come up short, you are better positioned to make informed decisions about your keywords, bids, ad copy, and targeting.

Refine Your Keyword Selection

The first thing you can do with the data from paid search analysis is to enrich your keyword strategy. From there, you may find important terms you’re not targeting yet by looking at the keywords your competitors bid on. 

You can:

• Add high-performance keywords: If you note that competitors rank high on some keywords, include those in your campaign.
• Remove low-performing keywords: If certain keywords are not performing well for your competitors, then these should be a signal to you to avoid, or at least reconsider bidding on.

For example, other bidders might have great results due to niche keywords or PPC keyword trends that you overlooked; including this term in your campaign could ramp up the clicks and conversions.

Optimize Your Bids for Efficiency

 

With the insights you will gather from your paid search analysis, you will be able to adjust your bidding strategies and be more competitive. If your analysis shows that competitors are bidding higher on important keywords, you might also increase your bids to get more visibility.

If, however, you realize that competitors are overspending for some of those keywords, then you lower the bidding and still get similar exposure while focusing less on competitive, more valuable terms.

For instance, if a competitor is spending heavily on a keyword but the return is minimal, you can lower your bid and still compete by targeting the same audience but much more efficiently.

Improve The Ad Copy to Increase Engagement

Other important areas competitor analysis for PPC can help with involve ad copy. It’s fairly easy to find opportunities to make your ads more engaging through the headline, description and calls to action used within your competitor’s ads.

• Create more compelling headlines: When you observe that competitors are using specific emotional or promotional wording, test similar styles for better CTR.
• Optimize your calls-to-action: Have a look at how the competitors are framing their offer or discount. If they’re seeing success with an offer, you can try something similar.

For example, suppose you notice another competitor ad headline touting “Free Shipping Today Only” that is yielding positive results. In that case, you will definitely want to include a similar call-to-action in your ad to drive urgency from potential customers.

Update Campaign Targeting

Your PPC competitor analysis may reveal that competition targets demographic segments, devices, or geographic areas that you haven’t focused on yet. 

You can make use of it by:

• Targeting new audiences: If the competitor happens to perform exceptionally well in a particular region or a certain segment of the audience, then re-target your settings to capture that market.
• Refining the audience segmentation: Using insights more narrowly define who should be seeing your ads based on age group, interests, and device preference.

For example, if the competition is strongly targeting mobile users with huge success, you may want to start shifting your campaigns towards mobile traffic. 

Regular Checks and Iterative Improvements

Competitor tactics can change frequently, so you have to monitor them regularly. By staying on top of what your competitors are doing, you can continue to make iterative improvements to your campaigns.

Regularly perform a PPC audit to see where you stand and test new keywords, adjust bids, tweak ad copy, and fine-tune your targeting based on competitor activity.

For instance, if you regularly track your competitors, you might notice that they suddenly increase bids on a particular keyword. By acting quickly and adjusting your own strategy, you can stay competitive and maintain strong ad performance.

Common Mistakes to Avoid in PPC Competitive Analysis

By avoiding these common mistakes, you’ll be able to run more effective PPC campaigns that leverage competitor insights to your competitive advantage.

1. Focus too much on vanity metrics

Impressions and clicks are often called “vanity metrics.” Why? Because their interpretation can be very deceiving unless they’re in concert with your PPC goals. The number of impressions does not necessarily relate to conversions or return on investment, which is what really matters.

✔️How to avoid it: Concentrate on KPIs that directly link to your objectives, such as conversion rate or ROAS. This involves tracking metrics that show how well your campaigns are actually driving real outcomes, as in actual sales or sign-ups, rather than just engagement.

2. Not Monitoring Conversions

A lot of advertisers do not track conversions, which shows how all those clicks turn into real actions. It’s pretty hard to know what part of your campaign is really working without conversion tracking.

✔️How to avoid it: Make sure all of your PPC campaigns on Google, Facebook, or other platforms have conversion tracking enabled. That way, you will be able to tie your ad performance with real results, such as purchases or leads​.

3. Overreaction to Short-Term Competitor Moves

One can easily notice an increase in ads or new keywords taken by a competitor and instantly feel the need to make some adjustments in strategy. But, moving too quickly might result in making rash decisions without focusing on long-term strategy.

✔️How to avoid it: Be measured in your approach. Instead of looking at the short-term changes, look into the long-term trend and patterns in competitors’ behavior. Institute strategy adjustments based on consistent, rather than fleeting, shifts.

4. Ignoring Indirect Competitors

Direct competitors are those who sell products or services similar to those sold by your business, while indirect competitors do not offer identical products or services but can still capture potential customers.

✔️How to avoid it: Extend the analysis to indirect competitors. Keeping track of their strategy might show some potential for market extension.

5. Making Inappropriate Conclusions without Context

Data without context is misleading. Perhaps a sudden dip in performance was not because of poor strategy but was due to external factors, such as seasonality or a competitor’s new campaign.

✔️How to avoid it: Always look at the big picture, such as holidays, market trends, or shifts in consumer behavior; never jump to conclusions. Compare data for similar periods to avoid overreacting to ups and downs that are temporary.

6. Failure to Act on Insights

One of the biggest mistakes in PPC competitor analysis is collecting competitor data without actually using it. If you are not going to apply what you’ve learned, then the analysis is meaningless.

✔️How to avoid it: After analyzing your competitors, implement changes in your campaigns. Adjust your bidding strategies, test new ad copy, or tweak your targeting based on the insights gained from competitor analysis​.

Top Tools for Conducting PPC Competitive Analysis

Following is a rundown of the top tools for running a competitor analysis for PPC, each with its own set of unique features and abilities that make them vital in understanding the competition’s moves:

Semrush

Semrush is among the most comprehensive tools for PPC competitor analysis. It provides highly detailed data on your competitors’ keywords, ad copies, and landing pages, as well as how they distribute their budgets. With Semrush, you will be able to easily track your competitors’ paid search performance, get inspiration from ad copy, and unlock keyword opportunities with gap analysis. It is the best tool that fits all-in-one companies depending on SEO, PPC, and content marketing.

🔝Best for: Enterprise businesses or agencies that need deep data across a variety of digital channels. 

✅Pros: Competitive insights into competitors’ keywords, ad analysis, and backlinks.

❌Cons: Very costly to operate for small businesses​.

SpyFu

SpyFu specializes in “spying” on what your competitors are doing with paid search. It takes the lid off top-performing keywords, ad variance, and even historical data to observe changes in competitor campaigns over time. What’s more, SpyFu’s ad tracking, with budget estimates, has become very helpful with regard to how competitors adjust their strategies.

🔝Best for: Small to mid-sized businesses focused primarily on PPC and SEO.

✅Pros: Inexpensive; historic ad data; strong keyword tracking.

❌Cons: The user interface may not be as polished as its rivals​.

Ahrefs

While Ahrefs is generally thought of as an SEO tool, it does offer a couple of useful features you can leverage for PPC competitor analysis. You’ll get visibility into the competitors’ top PPC keywords, ad copies, and landing pages. Ahrefs provides a decent keyword explorer that identifies which key phrases drive the most volume of traffic to your rivals’ websites so you can uncover hidden keyword opportunities you haven’t considered yet.

🔝Best for: Businesses engaging in both SEO and PPC strategies.

✅Pros: Excellent backlink and keyword analysis; exceptionally good for uncovering traffic-driving keywords.

❌Cons: Less focused on PPC compared to Semrush or SpyFu.

Google Ads Auction Insights

Google Ads’ Auction Insights is a free tool that’s integrated right into the Google Ads interface. It helps one understand how their ad performs versus other competitors bidding on the exact same keywords. Key metrics like impression share, overlap rate, and average position allow you to work out how your ad visibility measures up against competition.

🔝Best for: Businesses of all sizes using Google Ads for PPC

✅Pros: Free, gives direct insights into auction dynamics, easy to use

❌Cons: Limited to data within Google Ads, no insight into competitor budgets​

Recommendations:

• SpyFu is an affordable solution for tracking your competitors and analyzing your PPC strategy with this tool. It won’t break the bank; therefore, it is suitable for small businesses and everyone who operates on a budget.
• Semrush provides a full suite with extensive tools for PPC, SEO, and more, therefore this can be the best fit for larger businesses needing deep insights across multiple channels.
• Ahrefs is the go-to solution when looking to merge SEO and PPC insights, carrying robust keyword tracking capabilities. 

Each of these tools has its merits, which become visible with different sizes and goals of business, together with the budget that one has, making it easier to create data-driven campaigns in PPC.

Successful PPC Campaigns Improved by Competitive Analysis

The following section shows examples of real-world digital advertising that show how competitor analysis for PPC contributes to successful outcomes.

1. Hairy Baby: Competitors Insights for 260% Revenue Increase

Hairy Baby, a quirky Irish clothing brand, had a decline in its PPC campaign performance after bringing management in-house. To reverse this trend, they partnered with Scandiweb to optimize Google Ads and Meta Ads accounts, particularly during their high-season period.

An in-depth competitor analysis for PPC discovered new opportunities and audience preferences that were previously overlooked. In addition, the analysis of the tone and language used by competitors helped align their ads with Irish culture, better resonating with Hairy Baby’s target market.

The proactive PPC research led to dramatic improvements in PPC performance, notably during the holiday season. Specific results included:

• A 38% increase in conversion rate
• A 50% improvement in ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)
• A 260% year-over-year revenue increase across paid media channels
• A 500% revenue boost during peak seasonal periods (November-December)

2. Amazon PPC Performance Improvement: 11.83% ACOS, Sale Reaches $177K by Applying Strategic Optimization

The company faced several challenges with its Amazon PPC campaigns, including poor search term management, inefficient bid strategies, high advertising costs, and a low Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). It struggled to balance ad spend and satisfactory returns.

A strategic optimization plan started with a competitor analysis to identify key advertising opportunities and product targeting strategies. Product listings were optimized with SEO, and bids and budgets were managed daily for peak performance. Negative targeting was also implemented to cut costs by eliminating low-performing keywords while diversifying campaigns through brand and product targeting ads.

The results were impressive:

• $177,370.29 in total sales over the last year
• $20,983.78 in total ad spend.
• ACOS reduced to 11.83%, ensuring efficient ad spend.
• 31,080 clicks with 7.89 million impressions, significantly improving visibility.

3. Beechwood Mortgages Record 23.2% Rise in Revenue and 314% Increase in Enquiries with Competitive-Driven PPC Strategy

Beechwood Mortgages, an established financial advisor, struggled with high-cost, low-return Google Ads campaigns. Despite its strong reputation, it faced challenges in generating new leads online and competing with larger national rivals with bigger budgets.

A pay-per-click competitor analysis helped understand what the client’s rivals were doing effectively. It led to a full PPC campaign rebuild, optimizing bids and creating personalized landing pages aligned with customer search terms. The effectiveness of the new strategy was further improved through A/B testing and dynamic ad copy to drive higher conversions.

Results:

• 23.2% year-over-year revenue growth increase
• Conversion rate improved from 0.7% to 11.74%
• Call enquiries increased by 314%
• Qualified traffic grew by 1182% with the same budget
• 174% increase in campaign optimization actions

Conclusion

In this piece, we have gone through steps and tools crucial to carrying out deep PPC competitor analysis. The regular analysis of competitors will help you outmaneuver them by refining your keywords, reassessing your bids, and perfecting your ad copy and landing pages. By understanding what your competitors do, you will be able to make better decisions toward more optimized campaigns for better returns on investment.

To gain a competitive edge in your PPC efforts, implement the strategies we discussed and explore tools like Semrush, SpyFu, Ahrefs, and Google Ads’ Auction Insights. These tools can help you discover valuable insights and track your competitors’ actions over time.

If you need expert help to manage your PPC campaigns, NinjaPromo is a PPC agency with the experience to handle all aspects of digital marketing and provide tailored strategies for your business.

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