Competitor Keyword Bidding
There are two inevitabilities when dealing with pay per click advertising - the first is the need to spend budget and the second is that there will be some form of competition to face at some point. In PPC management, the competition is often driven by the keyword
selection.
Seek out the competition
When assessing competitors start by running a couple of searches. Whose results are returned on your key search terms? Who is returned for more than one of those terms? When averaging the positions out how do they compare to you? Also do these competitors bid on their own brands and products? If so, is there an opportunity to attract some of your competitor’s audience away? This latter question can be tricky to answer and there are ways of doing this:
NEVER:
Use dynamic keyword insertion to include the whole of the competitor keyword list. This will cause some angry responses and won’t create good relations with Google.
Make wild claims that can’t be justified. If you are putting in claims citing that you are better than a competitor then you’ll have to be able to back it up.
ALWAYS:
Differentiate. This is a fundamental principle in all marketing but is extremely pertinent to competitor keyword bidding. You can develop an attractive message this way without having to use your competitor’s name.
Display lower prices. You can always undercut as long as the price on the ad is repeated on the landing page.
Using competitor keywords can create a new stream of traffic but it needs to be done well. At Click Consult we offer expert advice on all areas of PPC including keyword bidding.
