Susan Wenograd discusses how to use competitive intelligence insights to drive paid search strategy. Competitive intelligence can provide valuable information about changing competitors, bids, ads, products and search trends. Insights include average position vs competitors, overlap and outranking rates, and top of page rates. Exporting data to Excel allows for pivoting to analyze mobile performance, seasonal trends, day of week patterns, and year-over-year changes. Quarterly competitive checks of ads, spend, keywords and mobile trends help strategize. Pulling competitor keywords and ads also provides opportunities to find gaps.

1. Competitive Intel: Using
Insights To Drive Strategy
Susan Wenograd
Partner & SEM – Five Mill
Susan.Wenograd@fivemill.com

2. Who Am I?
#pubcon @SusanEDub
• Partner at Five Mill. Made up of
paid search pros with avg. of 10
years experience.
• Specialize in medium-to-large
scale paid search accounts.
• Live in Virginia with my husband
and this cutie.

3. Competitive Intel Value
#pubcon @SusanEDub
• Things change: new competitors, new bids, new ad copy, new
products, new searchers…you get the idea.
• Down with being complacent!
• Seasonal trends.
• Mobile trends.
• 30,000 foot view.

4. Please!
#pubcon @SusanEDub
• Don’t do it obsessively!
• Launching new accounts
• Launching new campaign themes
• Monitoring patterns quarterly-ish

5. Where Are Auction Insights?
#pubcon @SusanEDub

6. What Does It Show Me?
#pubcon @SusanEDub
• Your average position vs. competition
• Overlap rate: How often you show and their ad shows
• Position above rate: How often competitor’s ad is shown higher than
yours when you both appear
• Top of page rate: How often you show above the organic results
• Outranking share: How often your ad ranked higher OR showed when a
competitor’s ad didn’t.

7. What It Looks Like
#pubcon @SusanEDub
Competitor
Competitor
Competitor
Competitor
Competitor
Competitor
Sometimes these will surprise you

8. But That’s Only Part of the Story
#pubcon @SusanEDub
Richness lies in understanding your
performance on Mobile, and performance
at different times of year.

9. Mobile Can Look Different
#pubcon @SusanEDub

10. Get Out of the Interface & Into
Excel
#pubcon @SusanEDub
Export & Pivot!
Domain Q1 2016 Q2 2016
Competitor 1 5.7 5.6
Competitor 2 5.1 5.0
Competitor 3 4.5 4.7
Competitor 4 4.7 4.7
Competitor 5 4.7 3.7
Competitor 6 4.0 3.6
Competitor 8 3.3 2.9
Competitor 9 3.1 2.8
Competitor 10 3.9 2.8
Competitor 11 2.2 2.3
You 2.2 2.1
Check out who’s on the
move.
Make a note & then
check in SEMRush.

11. Get Out of the Interface & Into
Excel
#pubcon @SusanEDub
Export & Pivot!
Day of the Week capella.edu You
Sunday 12.1% 21.6%
Monday 12.4% 21.0%
Tuesday 13.4% 21.8%
Wednesday 11.7% 20.1%
Thursday 11.8% 19.3%
Friday 12.1% 21.0%
Saturday 11.1% 21.6%

12. Check for Account Growth
#pubcon @SusanEDub

13. Check for Increased Budgets
#pubcon @SusanEDub
Export this competitor’s keywords, and de-duplicate against your
own to find untapped keyword opportunities.

14. Find Seasonal Wins &
Weaknesses
#pubcon @SusanEDub

15. Find Seasonal Wins &
Weaknesses
#pubcon @SusanEDub

16. Note YoY Trends
#pubcon @SusanEDub
These can be helpful in planning your projections!

17. …But Know If There’s a Reason
#pubcon @SusanEDub
Month Sum of Revenue/Cost
1/1/2015 1.37
2/1/2015 0.96
3/1/2015 1.88
4/1/2015 2.26
5/1/2015 1.91
6/1/2015 2.34
7/1/2015 1.77
8/1/2015 2.11
9/1/2015 2.14
10/1/2015 2.77
11/1/2015 2.45
12/1/2015 2.00
1/1/2016 3.16
2/1/2016 2.53
3/1/2016 5.18
4/1/2016 4.73

18. Competitive Ad Copy
#pubcon @SusanEDub
• Competitor ad copy and history
• Note sales cycles
• Note free offers – 50% off? Free trials?

19. Doing Shopping? Great.
#pubcon @SusanEDub

20. Doing Shopping? Great.
#pubcon @SusanEDub

21. Doing Shopping? Great.
#pubcon @SusanEDub

22. Doing Shopping? Great.
#pubcon @SusanEDub
Check out strategy over time to help you gauge if competitor is
shifting towards becoming Shopping-heavier.

23. Quarterly Checks
#pubcon @SusanEDub
Competitive ad copy
Spend trends – are competitors growing and
spending more?
Keyword volume trends
Mobile trends – yours and theirs!
Seasonal performance for peak times

24. Strategic Checks
#pubcon @SusanEDub
Pull competitor keywords. Merge into an Excel sheet
with your terms and de-duplicate to find keyword
opportunities.
Check imagery and product descriptions on
Shopping
Pull ad copy for year & look for sales cycles

25. Thanks For Coming!
Susan Wenograd
Partner & SEM – Five Mill
Susan.Wenograd@fivemill.com