Keeping a close eye on your competitors is one of the most important things in business. If your competitors are killing it with a new marketing strategy, then that’s something you should be aware of. Not only is this important information you can use in your own marketing strategies, but they’ve already spent a lot of money confirming the strategy works.
Like the old idiom goes “why reinvent the wheel?”
If your competitor is running a successful PPC campaign, then it makes sense to learn as much about their strategy as possible. But with so much information required to set up a PPC campaign, how can you spy on their campaign and collect all the information you need?
Luckily there is a range of PPC competitor analysis tools out there that will let you spy on your competitors and get all the information you need. From the keywords they are bidding on, to the ads they are running, these tools will reveal all of their closely guarded secrets.
So if you want to save yourself the trial and error of setting up a successful PPC campaign, then it’s probably a good idea to see what your competitors are doing first.
Here are some of the top PPC competitor analysis tools that will help you on your journey to a successful PPC campaign.
SEMRush
Price: From $99.95 per month
Best for: SEO analysis, keyword research
SEMRush is an all in one analysis tool that will give you lots of information about your competitors, including their website traffic, keywords, backlink analysis, and PPC ads. Simply enter your competitor’s website URL and SEMRush will display all the information they have crawled on the website.
If you’re looking for insight into your competitor’s PPC campaign, then SEMRush will give you all the information you need.
Not only can you view the keywords they are bidding on and their ads, but it will also give you an idea of how much they are spending per click and overall. All you really need to do is to pick the same keywords they are bidding on and create your own ads!
Starting from $99.95 per month, this tool offers much more than a quick peek at your competitor’s ads. If you want something more than just a look at your competitors PPC ads, then this tool will give you a detailed look at all of their marketing strategies.
Ahrefs
Price: From $99 per month
Best for: SEO analysis, backlink data, keyword research
Similar to SEMRush, Ahrefs is another all in one suite that will take your PPC and digital marketing campaigns to the next level. Just like SEMRush, Ahrefs will give you a lot of valuable information on your competitor’s PPC ads, website traffic and what keywords they are targeting.
Boasting an incredibly large backlink database, Ahrefs also has a great PPC crawler that will collect all the ads running for specific keywords. This means you’ll have access to a vast database of ads, who’s running them, and what keywords they are targeting. All of this information is incredibly important when it comes to starting your own PPC campaign as it can be used to create a solid campaign foundation.
Starting from just $99 a month, there is often a debate over which tool is better, however, since both offer a 7-day trial we’ll let you decide which is best. But considering most agencies either use one or the other (or both) if you want agency data, then these tools should be your go-to.
iSpionage
Price: From $50 per month
Best for: PPC analysis, PPC keyword research
iSpionage is a feature-packed service that gives individuals a great insight into both Bing and Google Ads campaigns. It also has a great feature that will give you a preview of their landing page without having to click it and thus speeding up your research and analysis.
Another great feature is its proprietary KEI (keyword effectiveness index) metric that allows you to easily see the most important and valuable keywords for competitors. Not only does this help speed up your competitor analysis, but it gives you an idea of how long a competitor has been running ads on a keyword and how much traffic they are getting.
With prices starting from $59 a month, iSpionage is considerably cheaper than other PPC analysis tools, which makes it a good choice for individuals and freelancers. To sweeten the deal, they also offer an additional 15% off if you pay annually.
SpyFu
Price: From $33 per month
Best for: PPC competitor analysis, monitoring competitors, ad history
One of the first tools ever made that was dedicated to PPC analysis is SpyFu. Compatible with both Google Ads and Bing Ads, this tool will give you all the essential information about your competitor’s ads that you can then use to your advantage.
The main features of the tool are the negative match recommendations, PPC ad rank tracker, and AdWords advisor, all of which help you create more profitable campaigns. The tool also features a huge ad database which regularly crawls the web looking for new ads on keywords.
When you enter a domain, it’s actually possible to see all ads a website has run across the likes of Google over the past 9 years. Not only is this great for keeping tabs on your competitors, but it also gives you an insight into how their PPC strategy has changed over the years.
Prices for SpyFu start from $39 per month for their basic plan which can be lowered to $33 per month if you commit for an entire year.
Serpstat
Price: From $55 per month
Best for: SEO analysis, domain comparisons, competitor research
A lesser-known competitor analysis tool, Serpstat has been around for many years but has only gained traction in recent years for its PPC analysis features. The software lets you enter any website domain, or search by keyword to see which AdWords competitors show up. You can then analyze their strategy and research which keywords are the most profitable without having to spend a cent of your own.
Other features of the tool include full SEO analysis which allows you to see where all of a competitor’s organic traffic is coming from per country and keyword. You can also collect all the low hanging fruit via long-tail keywords that could drive lots of traffic to your site with little effort.
Prices start from $69 a month but can be reduced to $55 a month if an annual plan is bought.
Stop Competitors From Destroying Your PPC Campaigns
When it comes to pay per click ads, competitors can be incredibly annoying. Not only do they run ads on the same keywords as you, but more often than not they’ll also click your ads to waste money!
With countless fraudulent clicks going unchallenged every single day, competitors can easily waste a significant amount of your budget without you even realising.
Known as click fraud, this plague affects all businesses no matter their size and currently costs advertisers over $7 billion per year. If you want to make sure you’re getting the most from your PPC budget, then you need to invest in click fraud prevention software.
Here at Lunio, we help thousands of businesses from all over the world fight back against competitors clicking their ads. To see how much of your budget you can save every month, sign up to a free 14-day trial below and reclaim your ad spend.
