Many know where to find their account’s Google auction data, but not how to translate it and make decisions off of it. During this session, Maddie Cary, Director of Paid Search at Point It Digital Marketing, will demonstrate multiple ways to take complex, muddy auction data and turn it into clear, actionable graphs & visuals to help you quickly and easily identify what competitors are doing and what steps you can take to drive better PPC performance. In this session, you’ll learn:
How to quickly & easily identify historical competitor performance and trends in your account
How to understand competitors’ bidding impact when you have multiple competitors in auction
Which “spying tools” are worth the time to use to get competitor insights.
2. Director of Paid Search at Point It
Based in Seattle, WA
US Search Award winner: Best PPC Agency
Lead awesome + talented paid search dept
Small to enterprise
Across verticals
Maddie!
@MaddieMarketer | @point_it | #MNSearch
4. Jim gets an email from his boss
Hi Jim!
I did some searches for our keywords and saw
quite a few competitors alongside our ads
What does our competitive landscape
look like in PPC?
Are we missing opportunities?
How has our performance been impacted by
our competitors?
@MaddieMarketer | @point_it | #MNSearch
5. Jim’s reaction
SO EASY
I’ll just pull an Auction Insights Report
from AdWords & send a screenshot
DONE!
@MaddieMarketer | @point_it | #MNSearch
6. The boss’ reaction?
Uh, Jim…
WTF
does this table tell me?
@MaddieMarketer | @point_it | #MNSearch
7. Oh, she doesn’t understand the metrics!
Impression Share
How often a competitor received an impression
as a proportion of auctions in which you were in
Overlap Rate
How often a competitor received an impr when you did
Position Above Rate
How often a competitor was shown above you
Top of Page Rate
How often a competitor was shown at the
top of page
Outranking Share
How often you outranked a competitor
@MaddieMarketer | @point_it | #MNSearch
8. Not quite
Get it together, Jim
I know what the metrics mean.
I need your help to understand the
TRENDS,
OPPORTUNITIES,
& STORY
@MaddieMarketer | @point_it | #MNSearch
9. Stop looking at competitor data like this
@MaddieMarketer | @point_it | #MNSearch
14. How competitive are the auctions you’re in?
PIVOT
To get Avg Impr Share &
Avg CPC per competitor
=COUNTIF
To count number of times
competitor shows up in the
auction over your given time
period
TOOLS & FORMULASDATA NEEDED
SEGMENTED BY
TIME (Month, Quarter)
AUCTION
INSIGHTS REPORT
CAMPAIGN
REPORT
@MaddieMarketer | @point_it | #MNSearch
15. Quarter Avg Impr Share Number of Competitors
Q1 2015 86% 8
Q2 2015 84% 8
Q3 2015 85% 7
Q4 2015 93% 4
Q1 2016 87% 8
Capitalized on opportunity to grow
impression share when fewer
competitors in auction
@MaddieMarketer | @point_it | #MNSearch
16. Quarter Avg CPC Number of Competitors
Q1 2015 $4.89 8
Q2 2015 $3.42 8
Q3 2015 $3.12 7
Q4 2015 $2.10 4
Q1 2016 $3.54 8
Lower CPCs during quarter with fewer
competitors + maintained lower costs
when auction returned to 8
@MaddieMarketer | @point_it | #MNSearch
18. Which competitors are consistently in auction?
LONGER TIME RANGE
Last 30 – 90 Days
AUCTION
INSIGHTS REPORT
SEGMENTED BY
TIME (Days)
=COUNTIF
To count number of days competitors
showed in auction over X total days
=AVERAGEIF
To get Avg Impr Share per competitor
over X total days
=IF(AND(
Conditional logic to define your
parameters for when data indicates
competitor is a bigger threat
@MaddieMarketer | @point_it | #MNSearch
TOOLS & FORMULASDATA NEEDED
22. Where are you most competitive (and not)?
PIVOT
To get Avg Impr Share &
Avg Pos per campaign
PULL BY CAMPAIGN
then consolidated together
AUCTION
INSIGHTS REPORT
@MaddieMarketer | @point_it | #MNSearch
TOOLS & FORMULASDATA NEEDED
25. Where are you missing opportunity?
PIVOT
To get Avg Impr Share
trends by device & time
SEGMENTED BY
DEVICE & TIME
AUCTION
INSIGHTS REPORT
@MaddieMarketer | @point_it | #MNSearch
TOOLS & FORMULASDATA NEEDED
26. Competitor Computers Mobile Tablet
You 100% 98% 100%
Competitor 1 31% 49% 24%
Competitor 2 16% 12%
Competitor 3 14% 16%
Competitor 4 10% 16%
Competitor 5 12% 14% 11%
TOTAL 36% 55% 44%
Some of your competitors aren’t
bidding on mobile, which
may mean Impr Share
opportunity for you!
@MaddieMarketer | @point_it | #MNSearch
28. How can you go from REACTIVE to PROACTIVE?
AUCTION
INSIGHTS REPORT
SEGMENTED BY
TIME
CAMPAIGN REPORT
AUCTION INSIGHT SCRIPT
3rd PARTY MONITORING
TOOLS
@MaddieMarketer | @point_it | #MNSearch
TOOLS & FORMULASDATA NEEDED
29. Copy/paste BrainLabs script into Google Sheet
Pull segmented Campaign report
Pull segmented Auction Insight report
Generates competitor charts alongside your trending CPC data
@MaddieMarketer | @point_it | #MNSearch
31. Research US + INTL markets
PLA vs. Paid Search trends
Domain vs. Domain
Desktop vs. Mobile ad copy
Great for SEO, too!
3rd Party Tools NOTE: I was not paid by any of these tools
@MaddieMarketer | @point_it | #MNSearch
32. Google vs. Bing ad copy
First & last seen dates of ads
Ad URLs with tracking params
3rd Party Tools NOTE: I was not paid by any of these tools
@MaddieMarketer | @point_it | #MNSearch
33. Color-coded ad change grids
Highlighted top performing ads
Keyword Venn diagrams
Segments top competitors
(paid & organic)
3rd Party Tools NOTE: I was not paid by any of these tools
@MaddieMarketer | @point_it | #MNSearch
34. Don’t let your PPC competitors
drive you crazy
GO O.N.J ON THIS THANG!
Use visual graphs, tables, &
3rd party tools to
• IDENTIFY TRENDS
• FIND OPPORTUNITIES
• TELL THE STORY
@MaddieMarketer | @point_it | #MNSearch
There are so many things I could cover here, so I’m going to focus on some of the really cool bidding options that Google has built out over the last year or two – and that’s AdWords’ Flexible Bidding Strategies.
These are automated, algorithmic bidding settings found in the Shared Library – and you should be testing them. There’s some things you can’t do – like the splits Beyonce is doing in HEELS HERE. But you CAN test these. Whether your goal is traffic volume, CPA, ROI, or just driving more conversions. There’s options for everyone! Kind of like how there’s at least one Beyonce song that everyone likes. Don’t even try to fight me on that, you KNOW it’s true.
There are so many things I could cover here, so I’m going to focus on some of the really cool bidding options that Google has built out over the last year or two – and that’s AdWords’ Flexible Bidding Strategies.
These are automated, algorithmic bidding settings found in the Shared Library – and you should be testing them. There’s some things you can’t do – like the splits Beyonce is doing in HEELS HERE. But you CAN test these. Whether your goal is traffic volume, CPA, ROI, or just driving more conversions. There’s options for everyone! Kind of like how there’s at least one Beyonce song that everyone likes. Don’t even try to fight me on that, you KNOW it’s true.
There are so many things I could cover here, so I’m going to focus on some of the really cool bidding options that Google has built out over the last year or two – and that’s AdWords’ Flexible Bidding Strategies.
These are automated, algorithmic bidding settings found in the Shared Library – and you should be testing them. There’s some things you can’t do – like the splits Beyonce is doing in HEELS HERE. But you CAN test these. Whether your goal is traffic volume, CPA, ROI, or just driving more conversions. There’s options for everyone! Kind of like how there’s at least one Beyonce song that everyone likes. Don’t even try to fight me on that, you KNOW it’s true.