This presentation was delivered at Hero Conf London, October 2016. Don't be lazy with your PPC competitor analysis. Starting with Auction Insights reports, we analyse the AdWords and Facebook Ads techniques you can use to avoid a bidding war.

1. Don't Start a Bidding War:
Outmanoeuvre your Competitors with Auction Insights
Rod Richmond
Director | Clean Digital | @ rodppc

2. @rodppc

3. “You should learn from your
competitor but never copy.
Copy and you die.”
Jack Ma
@rodppc

4. CHAPTER 1 OF 4
ENTER THE COMPETITOR

8. No problem with website?!
Quality score looks solid?!
No other external factors?
You do some sample searches and…

9. Who are
GolfersParadise.com???

10. Generics…

11. Shopping

12. Brand

13. KNEEJERK REACTION

14. Target their brand terms?

15. 95% of the time this is a lazy solution

16. It CAN work occasionally…

17. 1. When You’re Clever

18. 2:
“website agnostic”

19. 3:
“low product brand
loyalty”

20. Overall Not Recommended
Because:
“Searchers Don’t Change Their
Mind Easily”

22. 125 respondents
US & UK
All Ages

23. 63.2% (79/125) respondents:
would not click an ad for a website they have never
heard of before

24. 62.4% (78/125) of respondents said:
“It's confusing when a company shows a paid ad
when you have searched for a competitor instead”

25. Fine. Let’s get aggressive on bids instead…?

28. golfersparadise.com

29. Without Copying, We Need To Monitor and
Out Think Them

30. Starting with this little button…

31. CHAPTER 2 OF 4
AUCTION INSIGHTS

32. START WITH AUCTION INSIGHTS
Released in May 2012
Just keyword level originally
We had Impression Share before that

34. Better the structure and tighter the themes, the better the data
SKAG (Single Keyword Adgroup)

35. METRICS
Impression Share

36. METRICS
Average Position (Search Only)

37. METRICS
Overlap Rate

38. Position Above Rate

39. Top of Page Rate
Even more important since March 2016

41. Outranking Share
Low = 
We’re almost never outranking them

42. To Summarise:
EdinburghGolf.com
V
GolfersParadise.com

43. The Inverse of Average Position
x
Impression Share
=
Competitor Activity Score
A High Score:
(11-2.0) = 9
x
86%
=
7.74
A Low Score:
(11-7.0) = 4
x
42%
=
1.68
Bonus Formula Time!!

44. Shopping Auction Insights

45. EXCEL TIME!

46. HISTORICAL TRACKING - MANUAL
Manually by exporting with segments

50. Just impression share %
Relatively consistent
Off Sundays
Thursday and Friday Push
Definitely Managed

51. Very inconsistent
When active = aggressive
Brand new or unmanaged

53. SEGMENT BY DEVICE

54. GolfersParadise.com – Top Of Page Rate

55. COMBINE SEGMENTS
Competitor Activity Score as Main Metric:

56. REMEMBER
Missing Key Metrics
No Display Network data
Not all impressions used in report
On average 27% available impressions used for
Auction Insights report.

57. CHAPTER 3 OF 4
MONITOR OTHER CHANNELS

58. Bing Network (Bing, Yahoo, AOL)
UK: 23.25%, US: 31.3% market share

59. Same Metrics as AdWords
Can do Manually but time consuming
i.e. 30 day reports, or Mobile v Desktop only
campaigns.
No Auto Device/Time Segmentation Though

60. Crossover with AdWords competitors?

61. On average 2.83 AdWords competitors also show on Bing
(24%)
23 competitors in an average auction insights report
12 competitors in an average auction insights report

62. Snoop on their Interest Targeting & Creative

64. “Why Am I Seeing This Ad?”
GP
GP

67. Ad Espresso Ads Gallery

68. Ad Espresso Ads Gallery

69. General Research

72. Auction Insights much more accurate

77. Can Compete Can’t Compete
Next Day Delivery (Free)
Our Seller Ratings are better
(4.9)
We Can do 30% off Nike
Clothing
12 Free Balls With Every
Order over £50
Mobile price extensions
Loyalty Scheme
21,000+ Products
PGA Pro In Every Store

79. “What are the most important factors to you
when clicking on a PPC ad?”

80. “What are the most important factors to you
when clicking on a PPC ad?”

81. 37% said PRICE was the #1 factor when clicking
on a PPC ad
“What are the most important factors to you
when clicking on a PPC ad?”

82. “What factors would most make you change
your mind and click on a competitor ad?”

83. “What factors would most make you change
your mind and click on a competitor ad?”

84. 52% said PRICE was the #1 factor
Compared to 36% for PPC in General
When trying to get a searcher to change their
mind, PRICE is king
“What factors would most make you change
your mind and click on a competitor ad?”

85. CHAPTER 4 OF 4
IMPLEMENTING OUR STRATEGY

86. Bi-Monthly Auction Insights Report Scheduled

87. Specific Outranking Bidding (Portfolio Bidding Strategy)

88. Specific Outranking Bidding (Portfolio Bidding Strategy)

89. Outrank Bidding Setup (Portfolio Bidding Strategy)

90. Daily Bid Adjustments

91. Own Mobile and Tablet Traffic
GolfersParadise.org – Top Of Page Rate

92. New Ads and Extensions
Loyalty Scheme
21,000+ Products
PGA Pro In Every Store
Next Day Delivery (Free)
Our Seller Ratings are better
(4.9)
We Can do 30% off Nike
Clothing
12 Free Balls With Every
Order over £50
Mobile price extensions

93. Old Ad
New Ads

94. Old Ad
New Ads

95. IP exclusions

96. Gmail Sponsored Promotions

97. Gmail Sponsored Promotions

98. We will own Bing and Bing Shopping
And new ads and sitelinks…

99. Better Creative
Push Edinburgh & Scotland Push “Free Balls” Promo

100. Interest Targeting
Golfersparadise.com are an interest at URL level

101. Fill in their interest gaps
“18 to 35” and “36 to 60” in
separate ad sets
Combine interests for
“Scotland Golf” not just “UK
Golf” and tailor ad
messaging

102. And best of all
We avoided a bidding war!

103. Q and A
@rodppc