Why Competitor Analysis is the Best PPC Keyword Research Tool

Keyword research is one of the most essential aspects of a successful PPC campaign. Your sales page, ad content and even your budget would not matter much if you end up choosing the wrong keywords. If you make the mistake of adding all possible keywords you can think of, then again your campaign is adversely affected with poor quality score, high cost per click and low search volumes for many of the keywords.

However, creating a list of effective keywords that suits your budget, leads to conversions and has an acceptable search volume is not an easy task.

Many marketers end up spending a huge amount of time as well as money before they have a keyword list that works. It takes months of trial and error, investment in keyword research tools or service providers and testing through ad campaigns before you can start seeing returns. Unfortunately for many of us, time and money are not a luxury we possess.

In that case, what can a business owner or marketer such as yourself do? The answer: competitor analysis.

Competitor analysis is by far the best thing you can do before starting any PPC campaign on Google Ads. By competitors, I don’t just mean your immediate competitors in your locality that you know of, but also those companies that have current top ad spots in Google for your main keyword.

Competitor analysis helps in a variety of ways but some of the main reasons why you need to be spending little bit of your time on it is as follows:

1) Keywords that work: When you analyse your competitor’s Google Ads campaign, you get the full keyword list they are using along with the number of clicks they received for each keyword, the cost per click and also overall search volume. Now this is actual data and not just some estimate.

If you analyse a few competitors, you can then sort each keyword list by number of clicks and now you have the best possible keywords for yourself. You do not need to waste time or money on the keywords that do not have enough clicks or maybe cost way more than what you can pay.

Competitor analysis ensures you have insight on exactly which keywords are working, at what cost and which ones to avoid.

No standard keyword research tool can provide such valuable data. All you get in keyword research tools are an estimate. You then have to work out by trial and error to refine the keyword list. Not to mention the amount of money you will be spending on ads just to fine-tune your campaign.

Competitor analysis eliminates all uncertainty and you get to pick the keywords that work best for your business and your budget.

2) Huge saving on time: As mentioned before, the time you will spend on firstly researching on appropriate keywords and then testing them out via live campaigns is not a luxury most small business will have.

Competitor analysis will drastically reduce the time spent on keyword research and the best part is you get actual data on what is working and at what cost.

3) Inexpensive: Competitor analysis tools are quite inexpensive especially when compared to standard keyword research tools as well as the actual money you will be spending on initial Google Ads campaigns.

Most analysis tools would allow you to research on multiple competitors at a time without any extra amount to be paid.

You do not even need to hire a keyword research specialist and that in itself is a huge cost saving.

4) Strategic Competitive Advantage: Can you imagine having the Google Ads data of all your competitors? It’s an incredible competitive advantage that no form of keyword research tool will give you.

You can outbid your competitors, you can reduce your own budget by using only those keywords that fit your purpose and you can even create better ads as well as deals once you know what your competitor is offering.

Remember competitor analysis not just gives you data on keywords being used, it also gives you the landing page URLs of your competitors along with the text ad content.

5) Budget Creation: Many companies struggle to understand what would be an appropriate budget to spend on Google Ads. The confusion is further enhanced as most marketers would go through the test phase with lots of trial and error before their campaign can get genuine results.

With competitor analysis, you will know exactly what other companies similar to you are spending. You can even shortlist the best keywords, check how much each click will cost and create your budget accordingly.

6) Ad and Sales Content Creation (Quality Score): Since you will know the exact text ad being used by your competitor, the sales page URLs and keywords to shortlist, you can create your own ad and sales page content accordingly.

By using the most relevant keywords and adding them to your sales page content, your overall quality score within Google Ads will increase thereby reducing your cost per click and obtaining a better position for your ads.

All of the reasons above along with many more without doubt make competitor analysis the best PPC keyword research tool you can use. The best part is researching on your competitors is much simpler and cheaper than you think.