There are numerous ad spying tools out there.  Some are web based, while others are software applications that you download and run from your own computer.  All of them work off the same basic premise.  Ads that appear at the top of the search results consistently are more than likely to be profitable for that advertiser.  Who would be spending money for these top spots if they were losing money?  

By using an ad spying tool, you can automatically record and track what ads are being shown for specific keywords on a scheduled basis.  After the tool has collected data for a long enough period of time (10-14 days), you should be able to quickly discover which competitors are the most successful and for which keywords.  Once you have that info, you can examine the ad copy they are using along with their landing page.  As you can see, this knowledge can be very helpful for your own PPC campaign.

I’ve used several different ad spy tools myself, so let me share with you the advantages of each.

iSpionage – This is the most expensive tool of the group and will cost you about $75 a month to use.  It does offer several advantages however.  First of all, it is web based, so you can use it regardless if you are on a PC or Mac.  It is also project based, so it is very easy to scan keywords from several markets at a time.  Plus, not only does it support Google Adwords, but it also can scan competitors on Yahoo Search Marketing and MSN Adcenter.  

PPC Kahuna – This software is one of the main selling points of the PPC Kahuna pay per click training membership.  It is a windows desktop software and works on Google Adwords.  It is relatively easy to use and there are several videos on the site that show you different strategies for using the software.  What I like most about PPC Kahuna are its great filtering capabilities which helps pinpoint those profitable competitors extremely fast.  The software gets updated quite often, so expect its capabilities to increase in the future.

Affiliate Espionage – This is a cool little tool that has a whole host of competitive intelligence features.  It is also very affordable with a one time payment of $9.97. Since it is a Firefox extension, it supports all major platforms.  Affiliate Espionage tracks the ads that it sees as you make searches.  You can also input in your own keywords and have it scan during a certain time period. The extension supports the 3 major pay per click platforms (Google, Yahoo and MSN Adcenter) and it works by annotating the ads in your search results with useful data.  The disadvantage of this tool, is that all the information is not in one place, which makes it a little less convenient to find what you want than the first two tools.

Traffic Travis – This is a handy tool that any internet marketer should have.  It is a desktop software that you use on your own computer.  What’s more is that the program is totally free!  The Ad spy tool part of Traffic Travis is located in the PPC Analysis module. I would recommend that you try it first as new pay per click marketer.  It is limited to Adwords however, and it is not quite as easy to use as iSpionage or PPC Kahuna if you are tracking several campaigns at once.  

I’ve used all four of of these tools, and they all have their own pros and cons.  Ad spying tools are not a silver bullet for success, but you should definitely be use one.  If you are looking for something affordable, I would recommend trying either Traffic Travis or Affiliate Espionage.  Once you start making money from your PPC Campaigns, then you can graduate to the more expensive tools and launch more campaigns simultaneously.

In this PPC Bully review I will show you why I like to use a tool like PPC Bully.  PPC Bully is an ad spy tool that can perform a lot of this difficult work for you.  Just login to your PPC Bully account, start a new project and input in some targeted keywords.  PPC Bully will then start scanning your keywords and record which ads are showing up for them in the Google search results.  Let PPC Bully do its thing for at least a week or so, and then log back into your account and analyze the results.

Profitability-Indicator is the metric that PPC Bully uses to evaluate how profitable an ad is.  It is calculated using this formula:

PI = (Number of days ad seen * Percentage ad seen) / Number of days ad last seen

Using the PPC Bully interface, you can look at the results and determine exactly which ads have the highest PI.  These are the advertisers you want to base your own campaigns off of.  You will now have the knowledge of which keywords will be good to use and you should take a look at what kind of affiliate landing pages your competitors are using and develop one of your own.  If they are direct linking to an affiliate product, then you should be able to do the same.  If it seems like everyone is using a review type landing page, then you should also develop your own review site. 

PPC Bully also shows you the ads that each of these successful advertisers are using, so be sure to make note of this.  Writing interesting ad copy is useful because your ad CTR is one of the key aspects of a successful pay-per-click campaign.  A high click-through-rate will lower your CPC and your ads will rank higher in the results.  Don’t copy ads words for word, but instead utilize the good aspects from several successful ones to create your own unique ad.  By doing so, you may be able to get higher click-through rates than even your competitors are getting.

PPC Ad Spy Tools are a necessary part of any pay per click marketer’s toolbox and PPC Bully is one of the best.  It has an easy to learn interface and it will pay for itself after just a few uses.  The next version, PPC Bully 2 is actually set to launch on June 9th and it looks like it will offer some awesome new features.  Take the time to read more about it, as it looks like its going revolutionize how ppc ad spying tools work.