Write Better PPC Ads By Analyzing The Competition!

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

You can easily write better Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads by analyzing the competition!

(Actually, you can LEARN to write PPC ads by analyzing the competition!)

Here’s what to do:

Open up Excel or Numbers and create a spreadsheet.

Label the columns:

Website: This is the website that the ad is pointing to.

Perceived Value:  What does the customer think he or she will be getting by clicking on the ad?  Examples would be “Get White Teeth Overnight,” or “Get More Online Exposure Today!”

Risk Reduction:  Risk Reduction is what makes is “safe” for your customer.  Is it free? Do you offer a 30-day money back guarantee?

Credibility (Clout):  Do you have some clout to back up or recommend your product or service?  Are you #1 Rated?  Top Rated?  Expert?

Call To Action:  What is prompting your customer to take action?  “Buy Now!” “Free Quote” “Call Us!”

Qualifiers:  Think of these as action words, similar to a call to action, but subtly different.  What can your customer DO?  “Download,” “Discover,” “Learn!”

Stand Outs:  Are there any characters in the ad that pop out at you?  Examples would be symbols like # or @.

When you know the keywords that you want to target with YOUR ad, pop them into a google search bar and analyze your competition.  (Hint:  Your competition is the ads that pop up on the page when you type in your keywords.)

If you want to take it a step further, Google’s Adwords Auction Insights Tool will give you a little bit different look at your competition.  Go to the keyword tab, select the keyword you’re analyzing, and then select “Auction Insights” from the keyword detail tab.

By making a chart, figuring out what your competitors are really advertising – what the perceived value is in the ad that they’ve posted, what clout they have, what call to action they’re using – you’ll have a good idea of what’s working.

Do the same thing for any ads that you’ve already created!  There may be some surprises in store for you!

By analyzing the wealth of information that you’ve just mined, you can learn to write better, more results-oriented ads and build an ad campaign that will have your competitors analyzing YOU!

If you want to build a better, more results-oriented BUSINESS, click here!