Robert Brady Utah Digital Marketing Conference 2019 Learn more at: utahdmc.org Go beyond SpyFu/SEMrush/iSpionage with your competitive research. This session will specifically discuss the following: Using scripts to pull Auction Insights data automatically from Google Ads, graph it & help you easily identify major shifts in competitor behavior Getting into competitors’ best audiences so they basically gift wrap their best stuff and send it to you Researching your competitors Facebook advertising efforts to keep your social game on point Tapping into the new Bing Competition tab Level up your competitive research by attending this session.

1. Welcome To The Golden Age Of Competitive
Research
Robert Brady | Founder

2. A Little About Me
• In-house for small software company
• Freelance
• Agency
Doing PPC since
2006
• Located in Idaho
• Digital advertising only
Founder of
Righteous Marketing
• PracticalEcommerce.com
• Clix Marketing Blog
• Search Engine Journal
• #PPCchat
Guest blogger/writing

3. Who I Am

4. What I Love

5. Golden Age

11. "At my signal, unleash hell" - Maximus

12. What You’ll Learn Today
Use scripts to pull Auction Insights & process for insights
Tap into the Bing Competition tab
Monitor & leverage competitors’ Facebook & LI ads
Get in your competitors’ audiences & funnels

14. Start With The Basics
● Brainlabs Auction Insights
○ Get v3 - https://searchengineland.com/auction-insights-3-final-script-287148
○ Follow instructions
○ See trends instead of just numbers in a spreadsheet (or in the Google Ads interface)

15. Are Competitors Paying Attention?

16. Are Competitors Paying Attention?

17. New Entrant; 1-month burst

18. Action Items
● New entrants – Here to stay? Adjust your strategy. Flash in the pan? Play the
long game
● Are competitors asleep at the wheel? Take advantage
● Sudden changes with existing competitors – Analyze possible
motivation/reasoning and make a decision

20. Bing Competition Tab (basically Auction Insights)

21. Bing Competition Tab

22. Segment

23. Search or Shopping Campaigns

24. Action Items
● Do competitors behave differently on Bing? Usually advertisers are much less
active in Bing; easier to exploit
○ Great for competitor conquesting
● Are there new/additional competitors?
○ Small budgets – flex your muscle; once their budget is exhausted for day/month you clean up
○ Generic or arbitrage – should be able to outbid

26. LinkedIn Ads Snooping

27. LinkedIn Ads Snooping

28. Facebook Ads Snooping

29. Facebook Ads Snooping

31. Facebook Ads Snooping

32. Facebook Ads Snooping
Interest = “activity such as liking
pages or clicking on ads”

34. Facebook Ads Snooping
https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/

35. Facebook Ads Snooping
● Top 20 advertisers for August 14-20 include:
○ All the political candidates you expect
○ ExxonMobil
○ Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes
○ Evian
○ The Motley Fool
● “Social issues, elections or politics”

40. Action Items
● Do you like their audience targets? Age, gender, geo
○ Attack!
○ Avoid (exclude)
● What do they do with creative?
○ Go with opposing colors/themes to stand out
○ You could troll them (Bud Light & Miller Lite commercials)

43. Plan of Attack
● Always use VPN with incognito mode of Chrome; set to impersonate a user in
Dallas, TX
● Create new Google accounts; use age & gender as selected for personas;
leave all data collection settings in default configuration
● Visit “clean” sites (dallasnews.com, wfaa.com/local, fox4news.com, msn.com)
to check on what ads we’re seeing
● Check “clean” sites to see how ads change
● Check google.com/ads/preferences to see how Google is bucketing the
persona

44. Plan of Attack
Newsletter
Ned
• Male, 63
• Signed up
for
competitor
email
newsletters
Remarketing
Rita
• Female, 62
• Visited
competitor
websites
In-Market
Ida
• Female, 55
• Performed
Google
searches
for
products

45. Newsletter Ned
● Signup offers
○ Eden Brothers – 10% off first order
○ American Meadows - $5 off first order $40+
○ Dutch Bulbs - Free shipping (on order $99+)
○ Brecks – Free shipping (on order $50+)

46. Newsletter Ned
● Unintended messages
○ Eden Brothers – We forgot about you days 3-17,
blasted you for a week and then dropped you
○ American Meadows – We will never stop
○ Dutch Bulbs – Discount, discount, discount
○ Brecks – Oops, forgot about you days 5-13
● Never saw GDN ads

47. Newsletter Ned – Google Ads Preferences

48. Newsletter Ned

49. Remarketing Rita
● Who is doing remarketing on Google?
○ Eden Brothers – Yes, showed up after 1st visit; none after that
○ Wayside Gardens – Yes, showed up after 1st visit, still seeing on day 10
○ None – HollandBulbFarms.com, American Meadows, Brecks, High Country Gardens
● Who is doing remarketing on Bing?
○ Eden Brothers – Started seeing 6 weeks after visit
○ HollandBulbFarms – Yes, showed up after 1st visit; none after that
○ Nobody else

50. Remarketing Rita

51. In-Market Ida
● Web searches
○ “canna bulbs”, “buy Bengal tiger bulbs”
● Visited Farmer’s Almanac page about cannas
● Google Shopping searches
○ “canna bulbs”, “Bengal tiger bulbs on sale”, “pretoria canna bulbs for sale”, “red cannas”,
“president canna bulbs”
○ Clicked shopping ad for President bulbs, added to cart, viewed cart, viewed checkout &
abandoned

52. In-Market Ida

53. Action Items
● Competitor offers – a chance to differentiate yourself
● Competitor timing – be there when competitors aren’t
● Don’t over-rely on Google to figure things out

54. What We Learned
Use scripts to pull Auction Insights & process for insights
Tap into the Bing Competition tab
Monitor & leverage competitors’ Facebook & LI ads
Get in your competitors’ audiences & funnels

55. "I will win the crowd. I will give them something
they've never seen before." - Maximus

57. Thank You!
robert@righteousmarketing.com
@robert_brady
LinkedIn.com/in/robertallenbrady

58. Questions?
robert@righteousmarketing.com
@robert_brady
LinkedIn.com/in/robertallenbrady

59. bit.ly/aaronisacreep