Tracking which keywords competitors buy against

[hotstuff]

Hi everyone,

Is it possible to find out what my competitors are buying Adwords against?

I'm about to embark on a long process of testing which keywords are relevant to my category and then testing which are most profitable for me. I wondered if there's a quicker way of establishing the first part (what's relevant to me) by revealing what keywords my competitors are using.

Any hints much appreciated!

[mjtaylor]

Google Adwords has a keyword tool that will give you the relative competitiveness of each term. That's where I would start if I were you. It will also offer you synonyms and other terms to consider. It is in Google's own interest to show you all the possible terms that your competitors use so that you'll bid on them.

Once you start a campaign, the wealth of information you'll get from the ads and from your traffic analytics will allow you to optimize your advertising.

Good luck, MJ

[cg0404]

I use WebCEO as part of my SEO/SEM efforts. The software can tell you who is linking to your competitors. You might give it a look.

[Bernd]

cg0404 I don't believe that hotstuff is looking for the competitors BLs. He is looking for the competitors Adwords Keywords.
Hotstoff there's 'PPC Web Spy' a free Firefox addon for example.

[deepsand]

I use WebCEO as part of my SEO/SEM efforts. The software can tell you who is linking to your competitors. You might give it a look.

How does that serve to divulge what keywords/phrases said competitors are bidding on?

[deepsand]

cg0404 I don't believe that hotstuff is looking for the competitors BLs. He is looking for the competitors Adwords Keywords.
Hotstoff there's 'PPC Web Spy' a free Firefox addon for example.

Unfortunately, the "free" FF extension is deliberately crippled so as to not show results related to the query string!

[SemAdvance]

PPC Campaign Spy

SpyFu

Use it in good health!!!!

[deepsand]

PPC Campaign Spy

SpyFu

That's the one I was looking for, but couldn't find the bookmark!

Green rep. coming up as soon as my 24 hr. lock-out is over.

[dtalbot]

I think mjtaylor hit the nail on the head. Consider your time. Time to do good keyword research vs time to research what terms your competitors are using. You'll find more relavent keywords in the same time spent digging into your competitors keywords.

Also keep in mind that you are not getting complete data. Only your competitors know exactly what they have and the ROI on that. Any third party program will be giving you partial data and educated assumptions extrapolated from data gathered. The bottom line - third parties may be right or not. They may be close or not.

Don't get me wrong. I use the third party data but more to expand my research, looking for ideas and concepts I may have missed.

Best of Luck!

[cg0404]

My bad, I read it but saw keywords only, sorry about that. WebCEO is a helpful tool tool for Keyword search as there are many out there. It can track your campaigns after the fact.