Ad History makes it faster and easier to start with strong, optimized ad copy on day 1. This article will help you find:
your competitor's best ad copy
your competitor's most dominant message.
The term "best ad copy" is somewhat open to interpretation, so let's phrase it this way. We want to find your competitor's most successful ad copy. This is copy that they trust and turn to again and again on their most competitive keywords.
SpyFu's Ad History, an ad copy research tool makes it obvious which ad copy was successful.
Competitive keywords are expensive, so advertisers don’t guess. When ad copy keeps showing up in Ad History, it’s because it converts. Ads that don’t perform are cut fast.
Type your competitor's domain (competitor.com, for example) into the SpyFu search bar and navigate to PPC research>Ad History to see how their most successful ad copy evolved over time.
Testing and Evolving: Getting to Great Ad Copy
Looking at one ad at a time is helpful, but it's also just one part of the puzzle. You learn even more if you can see whether or not they used that same copy across more ads, more often.
The ad that Orange Theory Fitness ran in December for "fitness classes near me" is the same ad they ran for "fitness centers near me." That makes sense as the search terms are so similar.
But when we highlight that ad by itself, we can see that the same Month-to-Month Membership message carried across ad the key message for other strong keywords.
The advertiser relies on its best copy because that copy gets more clicks and conversions. We are quick to share a domain’s most successful keywords. With ad history, you’re seeing a domain’s most successful ad copy. It’s their go-to for effective messaging.
Finding the Strongest Ad Copy
The combination is the trick. Best keywords + Best ad copy. Finding this holy grail will propel you far beyond anything you could accomplish in running a few searches for current ads. Here’s why.
Let’s say you gather a few of your targeted keywords and snag the copy that pops up when you search them. Nice start, but here’s what you’ll miss.
Is this copy new, or has it been running for a while?
Are they using this copy on many of their keywords or just this one you happened to test?
And if they have thousands of keywords, thousands upon thousands, how will you ever know what variations they rely on most and what they’ve learned to avoid?
These are tough questions to tackle without a lot of time, patience, and eye strain. Without the answer, though, you’re taking your cue from an ad that might not be the best example of what connects with customers.
We found that literally highlighting the top copy gave us the answer.
A domain’s history is really a big blabbermouth. Its own ads give unmistakable clues about its strategy.
The longer a domain buys a keyword,
And the higher they rank on it vs. their other ads,
And the more the keyword costs,
…the more likely it is that it is a profitable keyword. We can figure out their most profitable keywords just from following their history.
Why Does it Work?
From years of following ads, here’s what we can say with confidence:
Sites won’t let weak ad copy run too long. They tweak and test it as they get closer to their conversion goals.
Google serves up the ad copy that’s most likely to get a higher click through rate.
Ads that have been updated over time are most likely using the most successful version to date.
Once a domain finds successful ad copy, they will put it to work across many of their keywords.
Click on an ad to highlight the same ad copy across the other keywords. That way you can spot patterns of their ad copy optimization. You can even tell how they structure their ad groups and see which copy works best from group to group.
Strong copy repeats and grows. Weak tests get buried in the past.