Growing up, I was a sucker for spy toys.
Anything that could make me feel like a secret agent, made me beg my mom to death to purchase the coolest spy tools.
From password protected journals to rearview sunglasses, I knew I couldn’t be stopped.
Remember these bad boys? – Image source
And just like invisible ink that slowly fades away, so have my Nickelodeon style spy toys.
But one thing that has never changed throughout all these years, is my fascination with being sneaky and smart.
And while I may no longer be roaming the aisles of Toys “R” Us (just kidding, I’m there once a week), I still find extreme value in knowing what my secret spy enemies (PPC competitors) are doing at all times.
Because if I can piggy-back and learn from what they’re doing, then I don’t have to waste a ton of time, money, or efforts to get ahead of the other 90% of competitors out there.
In a sense, my spying fascination has helped reduce the learning curve for our own agency and numerous clients as well.
Let’s get to it.
Knowing Your Spying Goals
You may think you know who your competitors are just from looking at the Google search results, but what about the ones who are making a killing on the Display network or on Facebook?
Maybe you’re spending $50,000/mo on Google Search, and they’re spending $100,000/mo on Google Display alone.
If that was the case, then you’d be more curious in knowing how they do that vs. your search competitor who’s bidding on the same keywords right?
I hope so.
Because what you’ll find in this article is that it isn’t cool to target more keywords, spend more money, and get more volume that way.
What’s really cool, is finding brand new channels, offers, and other gold mines that you never thought of before.
Just like JT asked us in The Social Network… – GIF source
And Andrew Garfield answered – GIF source
It’s also vital to know what you’re going to do with your competitive data. Changing your entire strategy just because you find a competitor doing something different doesn’t make much sense.
What if their traffic and landing pages look attractive to you, but their backend funnel and sales cycle is as deep and intricate as the ocean?
Don’t be the Titanic. Respect what’s beneath the surface.
So in addition to the Google Search network, let’s find those other pockets of competitor gold that will help you get closer to a billion dollars, faster.
Finding Your PPC Competitors
AdWords Search + Other Search Network
The biggest PPC platform out there is Google AdWords. And most of you reading this will be much more versed on the Search Network than on the Display Network, so let’s start there.
Inside your AdWords account, there’s a report called Auction Insights that you’ll want to run.
In it, you’ll find a list of current domains that are bidding on the same keywords you are.
It looks like this:
You’re the green row, all the other rows are bad guys.
To find your Auction Insights report, you’ll want to go to the Details button and select “All” under Auction Insights.
This will show you all your competitors from the account level. You can then drill further down by only selecting campaigns, ad groups, or keywords.
Now, the competitors you see in here are only showing competitors that you’re going against. If you’re not advertising nationally, then there are a lot more competitors out there that won’t be shown in the Auction Insights report.
To find those sneaky suckers, you’ll want to use a tool like iSpionage (more on them later too), to uncover the ones that might have slipped from your Auction Insights report.
Sort by Google AdWords and Bing Ads competitors.
In there, you can find some seriously extensive lists of old, current, and new advertisers that have keyword overlap with your domain.
The example above shows over 5,000 competitors, and while we’ll never have enough time in the day to look at all of them, we’re just going to focus on the ones that have additional keywords that don’t overlap with yours.
Other well known tools you can use to uncover competitor PPC keywords are ones like SpyFu and SEMrush.
SpyFu has the most beautiful user interface (UI) of all three keyword tools, and one of my favorite features of theirs is their competitor Kombat Venn diagram.
See who you overlap with and where you’re missing out.
You can then click on any part of the Venn diagram to uncover which keywords a competitor is bidding on that you’re not.
Another tool that’s made some serious progress on competitor tracking is SEMrush.
Inside their tool, you can not only see which keywords your competitors are bidding on, but you can also uncover Product Listing Ad (PLAs) and YouTube intel.
Also perfect for organic competitor research.
As you can see, the competitor information you can grab just from these three tools is seriously abundant.
Now you just have to know what your competitors are doing on other PPC channels and how to be effective with all that intel (more on this later).
AdWords Display + Other Display Networks
The AdWords Display network is one of my favorite places to go digging.
Because unlike the Search network, competitors on the Display network can be super creative when it comes to offers and their funnels.
Most of this has to do with visitors being in different stages of the conversion cycle, so advertisers have to get smart when it comes to getting people’s feet in their door.
So to see where your competitor’s Display placements are (the individual websites their image ads are showing on), go over to a tool like WhatRunsWhere, and type in their domain.
This will give you intel not only on their individually targeted placements, but also which other media channels (beyond AdWords) they’re getting traffic from and their best performing image and text ads.
WhatRunsWhere shows traffic sources, landing pages, image ads and more.
WhatRunsWhere has by far, the most in-depth view of where display traffic is coming from, not just through AdWords, but through other media channels like Media Buy, AppNexus, and others that the AdWords Display network doesn’t have access to.
Once you’re in there, you can drill down and look at traffic sources and export a spreadsheet of those direct placements and upload them to your own Display campaign.
Here’s where BarkBox is getting most of their display traffic.
You can take it one step further and click on one of the Publisher sites to see what other advertisers have ads on those Publisher sites and see if they have other placements that make sense for you to target.
Inside WhatRunsWhere, you can also look at your competitors’ banner ads and sort by something called AdStrength that showcases which banner (image) ads that have been seen most often (frequency wise), through multiple placements, and for the longest period of time.
This will help you learn which competitor offers may be performing best.
In addition to some of the things WhatRunsWhere does, AdBeat allows you to see spending levels and trends on individual media buying platforms and also has a nicer interface than WRW.
MixRank allows you to tap into the app directory side of things and gather intel from the iOS and Android side. So if you’re an app marketer, MixRank will be the place to go.
It also helps you find leads and contact information on key decision makers that your competitors could already be targeting.
SimilarWeb helps you see what other competitor sites are out there based on what domain you’re looking for. It will tell also show you organic referral traffic, as well as social metrics.
This tool isn’t as strong when it comes to PPC intel as the other ones are, but it’s an awesome tool to build your list of competitors that we’ll use for later.
Now, if spending money isn’t your thing, then you can use a free Display ad spy tool called MOAT.
MOAT has a deep collection (not as thorough as WhatRunsWhere though) of image ads on bigger advertisers that also shows you where a specific ad was last seen (the placement).
Click an ad and it will tell you where it was last seen.
Social PPC Spy Tools
Now as both you and I know, PPC traffic doesn’t just come from Google.
With Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn being huge PPC traffic drivers as well, you’ll want to make sure that you don’t count out any competitors that are using those channels to their advantage.
With the huge PPC usage rise for sponsored content (promoting your blog posts for example), many companies are wondering what additional tactics their competitors are using to drive traffic and conversions.
TrackMaven is a seriously impressive tool that helps you see what content performs well for your competitors across the various social networks and then reports back to you on the shares, backlinks, and more so you can craft better content to then promote via your PPC channels.
And they have the most adorable mascot too!
Another awesome social spy tool is SimplyMeasured.
SimplyMeasured is a social analytics tool that actually does more on the organic research side compared to PPC. However, there are some pretty neat tricks it does on the social PPC side too.
One of the biggest social PPC networks is Facebook, and SimplyMeasured can analyze not only paid and organic reach for Facebook pages, but also down to the individual Facebook ad, and breaks down engagement via regular ads, mobile specific ads, and sponsored stories.
With the options of desktop newsfeed, mobile newsfeed, sidebar, and affinity networks, it will be crucial to see where your competitors are focusing most of their Facebook PPC dollars.
PPC Landing Page Spy Tools
Okay maybe you’ve got the competitive PPC side on lockdown.
Maybe you want something a little more crucial, something that isn’t exactly PPC related, but has a huge impact on PPC performance.
If you haven’t already guessed it by the headline above, then it’s time we talked about the importance of spying on your competitors landing pages.
Landing page testing is one of the fastest and biggest way to improve PPC performance, and while we won’t go into all the trillion things you can do to improve your conversion rates, you should care deeply about it.
Why?
Because if you can improve your conversion rates by just 20% overnight, then you can effectively reduce your PPC ad spend and get the same results. Or better yet, use that improved performance to be more aggressive with your traffic acquisition efforts.
Convinced?
Okay, let’s look at two of my favorite landing page spy tools out there.
iSpionage isn’t only a search network competitor spy tool, it has a landing page spy feature tool that you’re gonna love.
Give it the PPC keywords and competitor domains you want to track, then the tool itself will automatically alert you any time it sees a change on your competitor’s landing page.
It makes my life a little too easy sometimes
Maybe your competitor is testing a new headline, brand new design, or better yet, a new offer?
And could you imagine if you had to manually check each of your 29 competitors manually, even if it was just once a week?
Sometimes the changes your competitors make are pretty minor, but this tool will catch it, and to your continued improvement, be an excellent resource of testing inspiration.
Now let’s say your budget is tight and you want to start out small.
I won’t judge you, I’ve been there too.
If that’s the case, then you’ll want to check out Stillio’s automatic screenshot tool.
Input any URL you want, and Stillio will automatically snap a screenshot every day.
Starting at only $3/mo, you can start tracking specific competitor URLs. That could be a mix of homepages and landing pages too.
And the cool part, you can even decide on what time of day you want the screenshots to be taken.
What does that matter you may ask? Great question.
I haven’t figured that out yet, but it’s cool.
Last but definitely not least, let’s chat about an eCommerce conversion tracking tool that I’ve found extremely helpful.
It’s Compete’s Online Conversion Insights that allow you to benchmark your current conversion rates with competitors who are in the same industry.
Since conversion rates differ a ton in the lead generation and SaaS space, you’ll find that eCommerce advertisers have strong consistency on even a weekly basis sometimes.
Not only does Compete cover the conversion insights, but you’ll also find that it overlaps with some of the other PPC spy tools we’re covering in this post.
Additional PPC Spy Tools
Everything that the visible eye can see has now been taken care of: Keywords, display placements, and landing pages, what else could there possibly be?
How about all the backend tracking and testing tools your competitors could be using to their advantage?
If you use Google Chrome, then you’re in luck.
Two of my favorite Chrome extensions help see what JavaScripts are loading on competitor sites and landing pages every time I visit them.
Those tools? Ghostery and Datanyze Insider.
Datanyze offers some more advanced tools for lead collection and sales prospecting (which we don’t need today), so I’ll focus this section on the free tool, Ghostery.
Once you have Ghostery installed, go to any website or landing page, and the tool will automatically create a quick list of JavaScripts that it finds. Here’s a quick look at our own website:
There’s some gold right there.
If you’re a curious one (like I am), then you can immediately search these company names to understand what they offer and how they might be useful to you.
Conversion rate optimization software like Picreel and Visual Website Optimizer won’t be found in the PPC spy tools we covered earlier, but are a huge deal to your competitors to get more out of their PPC advertising.
Install Ghostery to Chrome and start looking at your competitors’ sites and landing pages. Which secret tools are they using to get an unfair advantage on you?
One Tool To (Almost) Rule Them All
Would you be interested in knowing if there’s one tool that does almost everything we’ve covered so far?
It’s called Follow, and it uses the APIs from different tools to give you a holistic snapshot on a lot of different PPC fronts that you’ll be interested in.
Things just got interesting.
With Follow, you can take advantage of either their Chrome or Firefox extension and get competitive insight when you’re on a competitor’s page.
It also allows you to get 40% off pricing when you buy an annual plan.
Best advice?
If the tool you want to try has a free trial, then take advantage of it. Play around with it, and see if any of them make sense for you to continue to pay for.
If not, consider using Follow to get the best of all worlds.
Drilling Down and Using The Competitor Data
Feeling overwhelmed?
Don’t be. You’ve done some serious competitor research and have a ton of data.
Now comes the fun part where you get to use that data to improve your own PPC performance.
Let’s take a look.
If you’ve used any of the PPC keyword spying tools, then make sure you have those keyword in Excel files.
If you’ve used any of the Display spying tools, then also make sure you have those placements in Excel files.
Now, go into your own PPC accounts and export both your keywords and placements (if you have any) into Excel files.
You should now have at least two Excel files, one with keywords and/or placements from your competitors and one with your own data. Now take those columns and add them together in one Excel sheet.
Next, use the “Remove Duplicates” feature inside Excel (this varies depending on what type of Excel software you have).
This will then leave you with the non-overlapping keywords and placements and only give you one of each.
Preventing Your PPC Competitors From Spying On You
Joe Putnam wrote an awesome post on Kissmetrics that many people overlook.
You may be spending a ton of time spying on competitors, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise if they’re spying on you too.
To make sure you limit their ability to do that, you’ll want to do two things within your AdWords account.
1) Exclude Competitor Office Locations
This should be done with some cautious fingertips.
Let’s say you know where the offices of your competitors are, but you also know that you’re getting legitimate business from those areas.
So instead of excluding a city entirely, make sure you know for a fact that your competitors are clicking and spying on your ads.
If your suspicions do warrant a city specific geographic exclusion, then add that to your campaigns so your competitors won’t be able to see your ads while in that city.
Here’s how you exclude locations in AdWords.
But how do you know if competitors are clicking your ads?
2) Exclude Competitor IP Addresses
There are tons of IP logging tools out there on the market that will help you see which IP addresses are visiting your site and/or landing pages.
Unfortunately, Google Analytics doesn’t provide this insight, so if you’re serious about knowing how often people are visiting you and the exact company name behind the visit, then I suggest you try Snitcher.
Snitcher helps you see which companies have visited your site, for how many times, for how long, and which pages they were on.
Not only does this help you see potential competitors that are coming back again and again, but it also helps you see which legitimate leads might be taking their time to decide whether or not they want to work with you.
So it doubles as a lead generation tool as well.
What To Do With Your Newly Found Spy Intel
Many people will tell you not to copy your competitors out of the fear that it may not work for you, and while that could be true, I’ll always try to emulate first, and then figure things out after.
Try the same offers, designs, and ads that your competitors are using. And if you can, steal their ideas and make them even better.
But there’s one thing you don’t want to do, and that’s become stagnant.
Because while it’s fun to track things and feel on top of the world, it’s even better to be actionable with that data.
No matter what idea you uncover from using these PPC spy tools, you’ll want to make sure you double down on your click to close tracking.
What do I mean by that?
If you’re in the lead generation space, then a lot of your conversions will never turn into sales.
But what if a specific keyword, ad, and landing page combo yield a 30% higher closing rate compared to all other leads you’re getting? Wouldn’t you want to know about that?
To do so, you’ll want to make sure you’re using Google’s ValueTrack parameters to append to your Final URLs and other PPC channels too.
When you get data back, you’ll be able to attach the lead data with raw PPC data as well, and learn which campaigns bring the highest quality conversions and add more budget to those.
And it’s not just for lead generation.
You can do the same for SaaS and eCommerce, and see which combos bring the higher average order values too.
To take it one step further, you can use a tool like Woopra to run a cohort analysis or a sales funnel picture, at the keyword level.
This is where things get interesting.
In your PPC account, you may only be tracking first step conversions (like an opt in).
But what you really need to know, is how far those keywords travel through your sales funnel before they actually become profitable for you.
When you have this data, you’ll be able to quickly pause keywords and channels that look good in your PPC account, but horrible in your bank account.
These back end tracking tools will help you be extremely smart with your money, and you also stand the chance to eventually outperform your competitors at their own game.
Here’s What You Should Do Next
Some things to keep in mind:
What works for your competitors may or may not work for you, so always take insight with caution.
But don’t let that stop you from seeing everything your competitors are doing, and understanding why they might be onto something, and you aren’t.
If you find that you’re not expanding into new and profitable traffic sources or improving your conversion and sales rates, then the tools above mean nothing.
And you can return that fedora and peacoat to H&M.
miKeep that in mind as you pursue your growth.
Have fun spying <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/72x72/1f609.png" alt="