SEMrush Advertising Research
SEMrush advertising research tool allows users to access advertising information for a given domain.
We will discuss what information the tool provides.
Before starting I recommend signing up for SEMrush free trial to start experiencing this great tool by yourself.
Advertising research tool comes with many tabs and subsections.
Positions
Under the positions tab, you can find the following information.
Estimated traffic
The estimated traffic tab shows changes in traffic over a period of time. It is displayed on a chart which is very easy to follow.
Paid Search Trends for the Keywords
SEMrush paid keywords analysis provides information about the monthly break down of received traffic for the keywords.
Position Changes
Every keyword according to its past performance grouped under either one of the following categories.
New Keywords: New keywords are those recently found by SEMrush to bring targeted traffic to the website. New keywords can be found for 2 main reasons. Either new content added to the website or existing content is enriched with new keywords.
Lost Keywords: Lost keywords are those no more found by SEMrush to bring traffic to the website. Either content is revised by deleting those keywords, or existing content completely removed from the index.
Performance metrics improved keywords: These are the ones show better SERP performance in comparison to the earlier period.
Performance metrics declined keywords: These are the keywords that show a declining SERP performance in comparison to the earlier period.
The advertising research tool tracks keyword position changes on SERP and plots the found data on a chart.
Competitive Positioning Map
Competition is one of the most important paid advertising considerations. We cannot build any sustainable advertising campaign ignoring our competition.
However, having numerical competition data is not easy to get information.
SEMrush plots a competitive position map or “competition map” for the domains that are maybe potentially our competitors.
Every website organized in a way on the map to display the most keywords and best average position respectively.
If you look at the above image, you will notice certain domains have larger domain circles. Larger the domain circle on the map higher the visibility for the domain in the search results.
Hence, the domains with larger circles are more likely to compete with our site for our target keywords.
By default, the map shows only the top ten competing domains for our targeted keywords in the top 100 results. However, we can change the depth anytime we want to show more results on the map.
Analyzing the top competitors in the first 100 results allows us to develop smarter paid advertising targeting strategies since we can tap the competitor's hardly earned data.
Ad copies
One of the most brilliant features of SEMrush is its ability to provide unique reports about the ad copies used.
Ad copies can be found in the SEMrush Ad Copies report.
Let's have a look at the below screenshot. Our example domain (in this case ebay.com) runs certain ads that SEMrush found for us.
By using this report, you can analyze your competitors to understand how they make their appeal to their audience.
You can monitor all of the headlines and calls to action your competitors are using in their ad copies.
You can also find your competitor's target keywords and their landing pages that they use to bring traffic to their websites.
Under ad copies, you will notice a number that indicates the number of keywords that triggered the specific ad to show. If you click on that number a table will open up displaying all the keywords we have just mentioned.
If you would like, It is possible to export a full report with a copy of each ad. To do that you will need to go with the standard export and PDF buttons at the top right of the report.
If you need a mobile version of the report can also be generated by the tool.
The report will be almost identically the same as the desktop version except that the ads shown in the report target mobile visitors.
If you want to analyze the strategy of your competitors targeting mobile users with paid ads, this report will serve as a valuable resource. To shift between mobile/desktop, just click on the switcher button.
Ad history report
Ad History Report shows the past performance of a specific keyword in paid search by looking at the past ads.
The report (located in the main menu under Keyword Analytics) is a keyword analysis document that shows you all the domains that bid on the queried keyword and had a PPC ad in any of the top 8 paid positions in Google over the past year.
This information is very valuable since you can use the experience of your competitors to remove trials and errors in your own campaigns.
The report will inform you about how many advertisers you compete with, and how often they bid on these keywords.
You can also find out what time of the year you are likely to experience the highest competition.
The best advantage of the report is shortening the time period spent with the keyword research.
We all know keyword research boring and time-consuming activity.
Spending our valuable time by searching keywords without knowing their past performance can lead us to lose more time along the way.
By looking at the ad history report, we can define a golden keyword strategy that is quick yet very effective to find the best performing keywords.
The report is not limited to the keyword information only, but also the number of traffic those keywords drive. Additionally, if exist any keyword golden ratio, amount of ad traffic, the keyword bid price, and the total number of ads as well.
If you think this is all that SEMrush may offer, you are in mistake. I would recommend reading my comprehensive SEMrush review to learn all the features of this great tool.
