When typing c*ap can tell you a lot about your competition…

One of the great things about Adwords is it allows you to test so many different things ever so quickly. It is a very useful tool but if it were likened to a sword - it would be double-edged.

What do I mean by this?

It's very simple - your advert - when it is displayed - is in the public domain and can be seen not only by your prospects but also your competitors.

The reverse of course is also true, which means you can perform competitor analysis too. So how can you leverage this to find out who amongst your competitors is doing a great job writing Adwords creative copy?

A quick refresher is in order - Google allows you to match in 4 different ways:

• Broad Match (unadorned keywords and keyword phrases)
• Phrase Match (Enclosing Quotes " ")
• Exact Match (Enclosing Square Brackets [ ])
• Negative Match (With a preceding minus sign - )

Google also has some inbuilt smarts and will display your advert on occasions when it deems your advert is suitable (even though your keyword list may not match).

This is known as "Expanded Match" and is only employed for your keywords that are Broad Match specified (the least targeted). The idea behind this is to maximise your advert exposure thus driving more targeted traffic to your website.

Natually Google will get more revenue as a result ;-)

So how can you benefit from this?

I hope your eyes haven't glazed over quite yet because here comes the good bit:

Type in a keyword phrase you are interested in - it must be at least a 2 word phrase.

Note the results of adverts - there may be 10, 20, 100 or more depending on how competitive your market is.

The Gobbledygook Competitor Analysis Trick

Now - type in the first word from your keyword phrase, followed by some gobbledygook - e.g. 1kises - and then put in the remaining part of your keyword phrase.

Now you'll see the amount of adverts displayed will be vastly reduced - only those who have used broad match keywords will be shown BUT...

The adverts shown are shown in order of precedence - the precedence being dictated by the best adverts in terms of Click Through Rates!!!

So you have a sorted list of the best adverts for your target market for that particular keyword (exclusive of phrase and exact match keywords).

With this information to hand you can now construct better adverts faster for your chosen target market all for a little time taken to write rubbish and perform a competitor analysis.