Go beyond SpyFu/SEMrush/iSpionage with your competitive research. This session will specifically discuss the following: - Using scripts to pull Auction Insights data automatically from Google Ads, graph it & help you easily identify major shifts in competitor behavior - Getting into competitors’ best audiences so they basically gift wrap their best stuff and send it to you - Researching your competitors Facebook advertising efforts to keep your social game on point - Tapping into the new Bing Competition tab

1. Welcome To The Golden Age Of Competitive
Research
Robert Brady | Founder

2. A Little About Me
• In-house for small software company
• Freelance
• Agency
Doing PPC since
2006
• Located in Idaho
• Digital advertising only
Founder of
Righteous Marketing
• PracticalEcommerce.com
• Clix Marketing Blog
• Search Engine Journal
• #PPCchat
Guest blogger/writing

3. Who I Am

4. What I Love

5. Golden Age

11. "At my signal, unleash hell" - Maximus

12. What You’ll Learn Today
Use scripts to pull Auction Insights & process for
insights
Tap into the Bing Competition tab
Monitor & leverage competitors’ Facebook ads
Get in your competitors audiences & funnels

14. Start With The Basics
● Brainlabs Auction Insights
○ Get v3 - https://searchengineland.com/auction-insights-3-final-script-287148
○ Follow instructions
○ See trends instead of just numbers in a spreadsheet (or in the Google Ads interface)

15. Are Competitors Paying Attention?

16. Are Competitors Paying Attention?

17. New Entrant; 1-month burst

18. Action Items
● New entrants – Here to stay? Adjust your strategy. Flash in the pan? Play the
long game
● Are competitors asleep at the wheel? Take advantage
● Sudden changes with existing competitors – Analyze possible
motivation/reasoning and make a decision

20. Bing Competition Tab (basically Auction Insights)

21. Bing Competition Tab

22. Segment

23. Search or Shopping Campaigns

24. Action Items
● Do competitors behave differently on Bing? Usually advertisers are much less
active in Bing; easier to exploit
○ Great for competitor conquesting
● Are there new/additional competitors?
○ Small budgets – flex your muscle; once their budget is exhausted for day/month you clean up
○ Generic or arbitrage – should be able to outbid

26. Facebook Ads Snooping

27. Facebook Ads Snooping

29. Facebook Ads Snooping

30. Facebook Ads Snooping
Interest = “activity such as liking
pages or clicking on ads”

32. Facebook Ads Snooping
https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/

34. Facebook Ads Snooping

35. Facebook Ads Snooping

40. Action Items
● Do you like their audience targets? Age, gender, geo
○ Attack!
○ Avoid (exclude)
● What do they do with creative?
○ Go with opposing colors/themes to stand out
○ You could troll them (Bud Light & Miller Lite commercials)

43. Plan of Attack
● Always use VPN with incognito mode of Chrome; set to impersonate a user in
Dallas, TX
● Create new Google accounts; use age & gender as selected for personas;
leave all data collection settings in default configuration
● Visit “clean” sites (dallasnews.com, wfaa.com/local, fox4news.com, msn.com)
to check on what ads we’re seeing
● Check “clean” sites to see how ads change
● Check google.com/ads/preferences to see how Google is bucketing the
persona

44. Plan of Attack
Newsletter
Ned
• Male, 63
• Signed up
for
competitor
email
newsletters
Remarketing
Rita
• Female, 62
• Visited
competitor
websites
In-Market
Ida
• Female, 55
• Performed
Google
searches
for
products

45. Newsletter Ned
● Signup offers
○ Eden Brothers – 10% off first order
○ American Meadows - $5 off first order $40+
○ Dutch Bulbs - Free shipping (on order $99+)
○ Brecks – Free shipping (on order $50+)

46. Newsletter Ned
● Unintended messages
○ Eden Brothers – We forgot about you days 3-17,
blasted you for a week and then dropped you
○ American Meadows – We will never stop
○ Dutch Bulbs – Discount, discount, discount
○ Brecks – Oops, forgot about you days 5-13
● Never saw GDN ads

47. Newsletter Ned – Google Ads Preferences

48. Newsletter Ned

49. Remarketing Rita
● Who is doing remarketing on Google?
○ Eden Brothers – Yes, showed up after 1st visit; none after that
○ Wayside Gardens – Yes, showed up after 1st visit, still seeing on day 10
○ None – HollandBulbFarms.com, American Meadows, Brecks, High Country Gardens
● Who is doing remarketing on Bing?
○ Eden Brothers – Started seeing 6 weeks after visit
○ HollandBulbFarms – Yes, showed up after 1st visit; none after that
○ Nobody else

50. Remarketing Rita

51. In-Market Ida
● Web searches
○ “canna bulbs”, “buy Bengal tiger bulbs”
● Visited Farmer’s Almanac page about cannas
● Google Shopping searches
○ “canna bulbs”, “Bengal tiger bulbs on sale”, “pretoria canna bulbs for sale”, “red cannas”,
“president canna bulbs”
○ Clicked shopping ad for President bulbs, added to cart, viewed cart, viewed checkout &
abandoned

52. In-Market Ida

53. Action Items
● Competitor offers – a chance to differentiate yourself
○ Differentiate yourself; offer real value; make them channel-exclusive
● Competitor timing – be there when competitors aren’t
○ Be there when customers are & competitors aren’t
● Don’t over-rely on Google to figure things out

54. "I will win the crowd. I will give them something
they've never seen before." - Maximus

55. What We Learned
Use scripts to pull Auction Insights & process for
insights
Tap into the Bing Competition tab
Monitor & leverage competitors’ Facebook ads
Get in your competitors audiences & funnels

57. Thank You!
robert@righteousmarketing.com
@robert_brady
LinkedIn.com/in/robertallenbrady

58. Questions?
robert@righteousmarketing.com
@robert_brady
LinkedIn.com/in/robertallenbrady