The Basics of Competitive Analysis

Rachel: 00:00:01

with starter PPC.

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Today we're going to talk

about competitive analysis.

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Do not skip this step.

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You guys, every time you get a new

client or if you're thinking about

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starting a new company, you should

do this before as well as during.

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we typically do two checks, right?

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One is going to be, when we get

a new client, we're going to,

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begin with competitive analysis.

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we do this to get a sense of our client's

new industry, where our client is

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positioned within that industry, what

the competitive landscape looks like.

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it gives us an idea of the various target

markets and angles that can be chosen

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and, which angle our client is going after

so that we can help them lean into that.

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it helps bring up some red flags early on,

if the competition looks fierce and our

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clients not stepping up to the game, then,

right away on day one, we're like, Hey,

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we are a little worried about whether this

is going to work with Google ads or not.

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Here's what we suggest that you

very quickly work on because we

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have 2 weeks until we go live with

the ads and we give them a list.

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and then we might do another

competitive analysis.

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We almost always do.

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About 45 days in, if it's not working.

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so if the ads aren't working, or

we're not performing or we're not

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hitting goals, I would say about

a month and a half in 45 days.

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We're going to sit down and do, a

second check on the competition,

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and look for red flags that maybe we

missed the first time now that we know

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more about the performance now that

we have more conversion history, and

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try to go back and figure out what's

going wrong so we can plug that hole.

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If it is working, then typically that

second competitive analysis check

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doesn't really happen that early on.

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It would usually be, six months in

when the company is growing and it

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hits like a roadblock in its growth.

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Or the performance plateaus that we're

starting to, lose margin as we grow.

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And so we might need to go back and say,

okay, how can we be more competitive?

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let's see what the competitive landscape

looks like now, has it shifted?

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So I'm going to walk through

a couple of examples with you

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guys to show you, how we do this.

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We don't use any tools.

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I think we used to use spyfu.

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com.

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there's even a free version of spyfu.

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SpyFu tries to take, some guesses at,

what keywords your Competitors are

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targeting, how much their ad budget

is, in the end, it's all just guesses.

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And honestly, we've found that

we can get that same information,

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just more relevant to our client,

just using Google's free tools.

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I'm going to put my face to the side here

and open what I have pulled up right now

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is the Google ads transparency center.

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this is relatively new.

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I hope that's not an incorrect statement.

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I just found out about

it about a year ago.

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I don't know if it existed before that.

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and I'm going to show

you guys how it works.

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it is, I would say the main tool

that we use for competitive analysis.

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let's say we get a new client and

our new client sells tooth powder.

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tooth powder is toothpaste,

but in the form of powder.

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So what we would do is we

would open up a fresh tab.

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With Google pretending we are,

a potential customer and we're

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searching in the same words that

the potential customer would use.

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So maybe like best tooth

powders for whitening teeth.

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might somebody search for when

they're looking for this product?

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and then We look at a couple things

in the search results, right?

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So the first thing I'm going to

look at is usually the pictures

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because this is a product.

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the picture in the shopping ads

is the most important thing.

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sometimes you might notice That some

pictures are vastly better than others.

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so let's say this first one is our client.

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I would say that's a great picture.

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You can read what it is.

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you can clearly see the product.

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You can even see the size

before having a click.

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That's good.

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You guys, we don't want.

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To get a bunch of clicks

because every time somebody

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clicks, you pay for that click.

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So you only want people to pay if

they're pretty sure they're interested.

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And so it's very important to

show them as much of, the product

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in a clear way as possible.

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whereas this, I'm not so sure

I can see what I'm getting.

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This is a kit and not necessarily

powder, but I can't see

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what even comes in the kit.

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I don't love that picture.

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this one is Very far away.

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I don't love that.

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But I would assume they're going

after a slightly different target

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market here than Our client.

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This isn't really our client, but I'm

just pretending this is our client.

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so our client, is going

after a wider audience.

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I would say, and here we've got

a lower price point of only 10

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for 9 ounces, whereas this one.

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I'd have to click on it to see how

many ounces, but it looks like it's a

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little bit more of a high end brand.

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They're going after a younger audience.

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They've got a more stylized picture.

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If this was my client, I would say

great picture, but I zoom in a little

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like, why is there so much white space?

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these shopping ads are very small.

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it's important to minimize white space and

zoom in on the product as much as you can.

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So that's the first thing I look at.

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are my clients pictures, if it's a product

up to par and, can I glean what market

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they're targeting with the pictures.

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here, I would just say it's like a

wide A white audience, and that's good

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because they have basic price point.

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So that's fine.

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the next thing I'm going

to look at is the text.

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So this is the Google

ads transparency center.

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And the way you get to it is

you click on the little three

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dots next to the search results.

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and it's going to show you more ads

by this advertiser, which I just

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think is the coolest thing ever.

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now in this case, because I clicked on the

three dots next to shopping ads, I can.

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Click between all of the shopping

ads and the search results.

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And, maybe I want to see

more by, what was it?

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Primal life bite.

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I want to see more by bite.

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So I'm going to go here, click on

bite and then click, see more ads.

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This advertiser has shown.

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And if that advertiser has completed

their advertiser verification,

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which is something that.

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if you run Google ads, you already know

that Google is really cracking down on.

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So pretty soon everyone will have.

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if they've done that, then you

will be able to see more ads.

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So wow, 86 ads that they're running.

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some look like they are, search ads.

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So we could try to find those search

ads if we wanted to click on them and

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see what landing page they're using.

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I don't think you can see the

landing page inside of the Google ads

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transparency center, unfortunately.

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Hi there.

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Quick interruption.

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And the advice doesn't have any of those

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the algorithm into giving a small

account a leg up over larger competitors.

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Okay.

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Back to the video.

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some display ads.

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This looks like a shopping ad.

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this is a great look and

they're running some dynamic,

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dynamically generated headlines.

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DSA ads, those are called.

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So this is just a great starting point.

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If you find competitor that

you want to dig in and see

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some of the text they're using.

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and gather some ideas.

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it doesn't have to be a shopping ad.

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For those of you that are lead gen,

you're like, this isn't relevant to me.

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Why is she showing me this?

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what you can do is you can scroll

down until you find a search ad.

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Now, because I searched for tooth

powder, I think this is going to

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be a very difficult ad to find.

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Sometimes I have to scroll to

the bottom of the page nowadays,

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because Google is so slow.

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Really leaning into this

whole, shopping thing.

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Yeah.

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Let's try the bottom.

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I can't find a single shot, a

single search ad for my best tooth

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patterns for whitening teeth search.

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any of these really, I think we'll take

you to the ads transparency center.

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So it doesn't have to be an ad.

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This is an organic search result,

but Oh, they're not running ads.

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All right.

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Let's try a different search.

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Let's pretend we have a client

that sells rug cleaning services.

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So we're going to search

for rug cleaners near me.

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No shopping ads this time.

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surprise.

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Now this is a competitor near me.

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I'm in San Diego.

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you might want to type near and then

put the, city or town that the client's

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business is in if you want to see their

direct competition, So then here I can see

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more ads that this advertiser is running.

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Okay.

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14 ads.

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They've got some video ads.

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Very nice.

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I think this is a video

ad attached to a maps.

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Maps listing is really important.

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I've gotten some really good insight

from the ads transparency center because,

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for example, we had this client that

was selling, like advisory services for

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people who wanted to invest in real estate

and they wanted to open I'm blanking on

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what it's called right now, but people

that specifically wanted to invest in

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real estate and, sell it and transfer

the money to a new real estate, company.

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And in order to do that, they

have to open like a Delaware

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statutory of trust or whatever.

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And, even though our

clients could work with.

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Anyone the world, I think, and

advise them on how to do this.

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The people who were searching were

thinking that they had to work

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with somebody who was familiar

with the laws in their city.

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And so I didn't know this because I'm

not in that industry, but apparently a

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lot of the searches, are location based.

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And the only way I figured this out was

I was doing some competitive research

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and I happened to notice that some of the

competitors were dynamically inserting

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the searcher's city into the headlines.

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so we went to our ads and tested that out,

inserting the city into the headlines,

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just like we saw the competitors doing

and voila, our click through rate went up.

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You just never know what

you're going to find.

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I'm not just examining the pictures, you

guys, but I'm also examining the ad text.

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I'm looking for, themes

along the competitors.

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So I can really get a good understanding

of this industry and what's been

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working for the competition.

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pricing's a big one.

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I already touched on that.

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if your pricing is significantly

higher than direct competitors.

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Why is that?

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Is there a reason why, are you

targeting a high end audience?

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if not, you have a major problem, right?

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you have to go to your manufacturer

and try to figure out why your prices

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are higher than your competitors

can afford to sell it for.

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Oh, and going back to add text,

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most important ad text, if you are an e

commerce brand is your product titles.

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I'm not talking about the product

titles that are shown on your website.

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I'm talking about the product

titles that are shown on your ads.

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And these are two different things

because you can always have one

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product title on your site and

then override that for your ads.

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And I highly recommend doing this

because, your website might want to

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have a shorter titles, to keep the page

shorter and pull the description up.

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since everybody already knows your brand.

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they're already on your site.

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You don't have to put the brand

name in the product title.

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However, on the shopping ad, I would say

about 80 percent of the time you want

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to add the brand name into the title.

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I don't know why, but

it just seems to help.

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I really can't point to, why that is.

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We have to put the brand

name at the end of the title.

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except for in some industries, like if

we're doing competitive research and

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we can see that everybody has the brand

name at the beginning of the title.

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That's probably because the people

searching are looking for known brand

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tend to be looking for known branding.

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So you want to act like you are also a

known brand name, even if you're a small

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business and you're just starting out.

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So certain industries have certain

quirks like that really important

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to examine the competition.

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also examine their landing page.

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And the only way to really know what

landing page they're using is to click

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on their ad, which spends their money,

unfortunately, and it's rude, but it's

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the only way to truly see what landing

page, as you can see here, they are

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not using the homepage of their site,

even though the ad looked like they

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were using the homepage of their site.

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so they've created a

landing page just for ads.

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Do you want to do that too?

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maybe not.

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this is conversation for another

day, but this is part of what we are.

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What we're looking at, is we're comparing

what landing page are we planning on

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using versus what landing page, what is

the competitive landing pages look like,

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and is it up to par doesn't have to match

perfectly, but, do we think has similar,

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call to actions and is it just as good.

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Buttons above the fold, things like that.

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I'm trying to think if there's anything

else I want to run by you guys.

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there's so much to consider.

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I think that's everything.

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So I hope this has been helpful.

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when it comes to keyword research, I would

say that's a topic for another day, but

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it does fall under competitive research.

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And what I mean by that is you

want to do your keyword research

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around the same time that you're

doing your competitive research.

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So you go into the Google ads

keyword planner tool inside of your

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account, pull up keyword suggestions

and try doing a few searches using

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those keywords because those are the

keywords you're going to be targeting.

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And those are the keywords that

Google ads algorithm thinks

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that your website targets.

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And those are then the keywords

that you want to use to conduct

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your competitive analysis.

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all right.

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I think that's that.

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Thanks for watching.

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Good luck.