Don't Start a Bidding War: Outmanoeuvre your Competitors with Auction Insights

Rod RichmondDirector | C lean Dig i ta l | @rodppc

@rodppc

“You should learn from your competitor but

never copy. Copy and you die.”

Jack Ma

@rodppc

CHAPTER 1 OF 4ENTER THE COMPETITOR

No problem with website?!

Quality score looks solid?!

No other external factors?

You do some sample searches and…

Who are

GolfersParadise.com???

Generics…

Shopping

Brand

KNEEJERK REACTION

Target their brand terms?

95% of the time this is a lazy solution

It CAN work occasionally…

1. When You’re Clever

Can work, but not be lazy!

2:“website agnostic”

3:“low product brand

loyalty”

Overall Not Recommended

Because:

“Searchers Don’t Change Their Mind

Easily”

125 respondents

US & UK

All Ages

63.2% (79/125) respondents:

would not click an ad for a website they have never heard of before

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”

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

golfersparadise.com

Without Copying, We Need To Monitor and Out Think Them

Starting with this little button…

CHAPTER 2 OF 4AUCTION INSIGHTS

START WITH AUCTION INSIGHTS

Released in May 2012

Just keyword level originally

We had Impression Share before that

Better the structure and tighter the themes, the better the data

SKAG (Single Keyword Adgroup)

METRICSImpression Share

METRICSAverage Position (Search Only)

METRICSOverlap Rate

Position Above Rate

Top of Page Rate

Even more important since March 2016

Outranking ShareLow =

We’re almost never outranking them

To Summarise:

EdinburghGolf.comV

GolfersParadise.com

The Inverse of Average Positionx

Impression Share=

Competitor Activity Score

A High Score:

(11-2.0) = 9x

86%=

7.74

A Low Score:

(11-7.0) = 4x

42%=

1.68

Bonus Formula Time!!

Shopping Auction Insights

EXCEL TIME!

HISTORICAL TRACKING - MANUAL

Manually by exporting with segments

Just impression share %

Relatively consistent

Off Sundays

Thursday and Friday Push

Definitely Managed

Very inconsistent

When active = aggressive

Brand new or unmanaged

SEGMENT BY DEVICE

GolfersParadise.com – Top Of Page Rate

COMBINE SEGMENTSCompetitor Activity Score as Main Metric:

REMEMBERMissing Key Metrics

No Display Network data

Not all impressions used in report

On average 27% available impressions used for Auction Insights

report.

CHAPTER 3 OF 4MONITOR OTHER CHANNELS

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

share

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

Crossover with AdWords competitors?

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

Snoop on their Interest Targeting & Creative

“Why Am I Seeing This Ad?”

GP

GP

Ad Espresso Ads Gallery

Ad Espresso Ads Gallery

General Research

Auction Insights much more accurate

Can Compete Can’t CompeteNext 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

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

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

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?”

“What factors would most make you change your mind and click on a

competitor ad?”

“What factors would most make you change your mind and click on a

competitor ad?”

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?”

CHAPTER 4 OF 4IMPLEMENTING OUR STRATEGY

Bi-Monthly Auction Insights Report Scheduled

Specific Outranking Bidding (Portfolio Bidding Strategy)

Specific Outranking Bidding (Portfolio Bidding Strategy)

Outrank Bidding Setup (Portfolio Bidding Strategy)

Daily Bid Adjustments

Own Mobile and Tablet Traffic

GolfersParadise.org – Top Of Page Rate

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

Old Ad

New Ads

Old Ad

New Ads

IP exclusions

Gmail Sponsored Promotions

Gmail Sponsored Promotions

We will own Bing and Bing Shopping

And new ads and sitelinks…

Better Creative

Push Edinburgh & Scotland Push “Free Balls” Promo

Interest Targeting

Golfersparadise.com are an interest at URL level

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

And best of all

We avoided a bidding war!

Q and A

@rodppc