Businesses of all sizes are looking for ways to ensure their success in the digital marketing arena, and one of the most effective tools available is B2B pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.
PPC campaigns offer targeted visibility on search engines and social media platforms that can help B2B brands reach their target audiences quickly and efficiently. By leveraging the power of PPC, businesses can gain an edge over their competitors while maximizing ROI.
To better manage PPC performance and optimize campaigns in 2023, it’s important to use the right tools. Professional PPC service or PPC agency providers diagnose and plan every move and bid for your ads based on the data they collect in a timely manner.
There are many useful PPC analysis tools deployed by PPC experts and agencies. Here are the 15 best tools you need to know:
At Snell Media, we believe that businesses of all sizes should have access to these analysis tools so they can measure and improve their campaigns.
Keep reading our comprehensive guide of PPC analysis tools so you can gain a better understanding of which approaches are working best for your business — allowing you to make informed decisions about your marketing
Who we are: With over 25 years of experience, SnellMedia has created thousands of successful B2B Google Ads campaigns for clients primarily in SaaS, Manufacturing Automation and Healthtech. Book a 30-minute consultation with a senior, Google-certified member of our team today. During the call, we’ll answer any Google Ads-related questions you have and audit your account to provide your marketing team with valuable feedback they can implement to double or maybe even triple your lead generation.
One of the first things you should do before downloading an analysis tool is understand your needs. There are several exceptional PPC management tools, and knowing which ones work best for your platform and campaign can help you avoid wasting unnecessary time and money.
Having unused programmes going while you run a campaign is not a good idea as you will need to closely monitor all the tools. Moreover, if the wrong data is collected by an unfit tool, this leads to an incorrect judgement of the PPC strategy. The result can be catastrophic.
Just because there are tons of tools to choose from doesn’t mean you have to use them all. Keep in mind the kind of campaign you are running and its goals and limitations and find the right fit for you. Campaigns can run for long periods. Do the work as it appears if you are a newbie, and lean on your experience if you are a seasoned marketer.
Questions you need to ask when choosing the perfect tool for you:
Some tools are created for multi-analysis and some are for specific jobs. Each tool also has different strengths. For instance, multifunctional tools like Google Ads support marketers in running PPC ads with keyword search data, customer behaviour analysis, competitor analysis and so much more.
Other tools like Ahrefs provide in-depth research into keyword analysis, and SEMrush supports graphical comparisons between different competitors' strategies. These tools all have their own strengths in a specific field, so finding the one that suits you best can save you a lot of trouble.
Another aspect to examine in your choice of PPC tool is whether it supports your SEO plan. PPC campaigns contain multiple aspects, including keyword research, audience targeting, bidding strategy and PPC landing page design. A good SEO and PPC integration plan can push your paid search campaign to the next level. Make sure to consider your needs in both strategies and find the tools that cover it all.
Most good tools for PPC analysis are not free. Different subscription packages come with different functions. Users can judge based on their needs to find a reasonable package to purchase.
Of course, there are some free analysis tools that work just as well as others, or even better. Google Ads is one of these. As the biggest search engine in the world, Google holds unlimited data from billions of internet users. The platform has many tool options, such as keyword research and ad planning to help you plan winning paid ads.
When it comes to choosing a PPC tool, sticking to these three criteria might be difficult and exhausting. Consult a PPC management agency about how to pick your perfect match. PPC experts are more than happy to help you figure it out with their professional point of view.
Choosing the tools required for successful ad campaigns isn’t an easy task, but it is an important decision. The right tools can make a big difference when managing your PPC campaigns. Based on their attributes, some tools are good for planning campaigns, some have powerful functions to calculate the best bidding plan and others have a spectacular scope in examining the searching behaviour of internet users.
Here are 15 top-rated PPC tools that can help you take your PPC ads to the next level:
As one of the tools that offer support for planning a campaign, analysing and improving your ads, Google Ads is the most powerful PPC analysis tool in modern paid advertising.
It allows companies to buy and sell advertising space 24/7. The ads are a driving force behind Google’s immensely popular search engine. In addition, Google Ads has the advantage of diverse inventories (Gmail, Google Calendar, YouTube, etc.), so Google PPC ads can be shown in any inventory of your choice to create the best result.
Google Ads has a Performance Planner tool to help you predict and plan the best bidding strategy in the future with machine learning. It also offers a Keyword Research Planner to support your keyword research with the actual search results from internet users.
The Google Quality Score is a metric that evaluates the quality and relevance of your keywords and landing pages. It also helps you find out the negative keyword terms and create a negative exact match keyword list and negative phrase match keyword list based on the search query of your choice. This ensures your ads are only shown to the right audience and your ad budget is well spent.
For ad creation, advertisers can use Ad Review and Diagnosis to see the live ads for different keywords, devices and countries and find inspiration for your PPC ad copy. All this is just the tip of the iceberg of what Google Ads can do. Setting up a Google Ads account will be the best decision you’ve ever made.
Google Analytics is another powerful tool in the Google family, providing businesses with a comprehensive set of tools to measure, track and analyze their campaigns. It allows companies to create detailed reports about their performance metrics and optimize their campaigns for maximum effectiveness.
For example, businesses can use the tool to monitor conversion rates from various ad sources, understand which keywords are driving leads and sales, and gain insight into their customers' behavior. With this data, businesses can make informed decisions regarding how to adjust their campaigns for optimal performance.
What main things can you use Google Analytics for?
These features make it easy to target audiences more efficiently and accurately while maximizing ROI on PPC campaigns.
Google Trends is a useful PPC tool for understanding how user search behavior is changing over time. With Google Trends, you can track the trend in queries related to your business and its products or services. You can also identify emerging trends that you can use to adjust the targeting of your PPC campaigns.
The main uses of Google trends are:
While it isn’t a PPC marketing tool per se, Google Sheets is critical to a campaign. The data shared between the people involved in the process needs a place to live. Google Sheets compounds the data made by the campaign and spit them out into numbers that all the team will have access to. It is a good tool to organise every draft of your ad copy and communicate with your collaborators.
Another tool from the Google family aims to make your life easier. Google Ads Editor is an offline Google Ads management tool that helps you organise and plan your paid ad on your devices. This tool makes the management of large-scale or long-term campaigns easier to access.
HubSpot does an excellent job of caring for your client relationships, but its ambition doesn't stop there. HubSpot now not only supports functions like website creation, social media post planning and customer relationship management (CRM), but it also has one of the most customisable dashboard systems that generate reports perfectly.
As of this year, HubSpot is collaborating with Google Ads and Facebook Ads so you can pool all the campaign data from these paid media channels, which helps you examine your marketing plan from a complete perspective.
SpyFu is one of the best programs you can use to keep pace with your competitors. It uses a vast database full of SEO terms and keywords that the competition has used. However, it goes further than copying your rivals by allowing keywords from all search engines to improve your campaign.
This is another popular choice of keyword research tool. Ahrefs is a multifunctional tool that has the most compatible keyword research ability to help you understand your options and advantages in keyword choices. You can examine the performance of certain keywords in different countries, get inspired by your organic keyword list and examine the paid and organic keywords used by your competitors.
As the key competitor to Ahrefs in the current marketing tools market, SEMrush takes another approach to competitor research. SEMrush supports powerful and highly graphical competitor research for local and international businesses. Its functions include keyword comparison, SEO audit and social media activities.
Another strength that only SEMrush has is the search intention attribute. One of the latest functions SEMrush has released is the ability to categorise keywords with different search intentions. Accuracy of up to 80~90% has been proven by many users. This is a great help for marketers in deciding which keywords to aim for to meet their conversion goals.
If you are a seller on Amazon, you must familiarise yourself with the Advertising platform, now called Amify. This software helps with everything from creating content to placing landing page ads. For brands that want to expand their reach in eCommerce PPC on Amazon, Amazon advertising is a great choice to start trying out your first eCommerce campaign.
This is also known as Bing Ads and is the software that allows you to contact internet users. It is also equipped with compatible functions in paid campaigns. However, the majority of internet users search on Google, and it is possible that your audience will be the same. Investing in Bing Ads only might lead to a less effective campaign or waste of budget.
Yahoo has been passed around for a few years but has finally settled under the Verizon umbrella. Its search and ad engines are responsible for a small part of the market but can still be helpful to your campaign. In addition, using Verizon gives you access to landing pages and other tools some companies do not provide.
Teikametrics is the sub-company of Amazon that handles all of its ad sales and landing pages. Teikametrics is a fantastic app that allows you to find out what will make your Amazon product fly off the virtual shelves. However, be careful using Teika as it only works with Amazon.
This is one of the best landing page tools you can use for your ad campaigns. It has template landing pages that are proven to increase traffic and sales and make your page look amazing. Don’t discount shop for simple software. Often, customers buy where they feel safest and ignore the hard work done on the webpage.
Optimizely handles content as well as a few other B2B brokerage tools. The content isn’t technical, but there could be problems with production, so using a tool to ensure content loads are correct is smart.
Use as many of the tools as you need, but make sure to pick the right one, because the wrong tool will give you the wrong data or no data, which leads you to wrong judgements and bad decisions. Consulting a professional PPC management company to figure out your options is a good and safe way to avoid mistakes.
According to its use and strength, each PPC tool can be categorised into 5 different categories. The different types of PPC tools are
Each of the tools has a purpose that helps to improve your campaign. There are systems to keep your bidding time low and remove stagnant keywords from your audiences' search results. Others control the content on your ads and ensure that they engage with your buyers as they are designed.
Even after you've deleted an ad or keyword, it may continue to have an impact on your account history. However, we recommend deleting low-performing ads and keywords to boost the Quality Score.
Leverage the negative keyword lists to create a campaign with the most profitable keywords. There is no such thing as too many negative keywords in campaign management.
We suggest you create lists with different negative keyword match types, such as negative exact match keywords, negative phrase match keywords and negative broad match keywords, to ensure your ad doesn't show up for searches that aren't relevant and better adjust the different levels of keyword screening.
By improving your Quality Score, you can spend less and achieve more desired results. Three main factors influence the Quality Score - expected click-through rate (CTR), ad relevance and landing page experience. Keep these in mind to ensure the most efficient use of your ad budget.
Who we are: With over 25 years of experience, SnellMedia has created thousands of successful B2B Google Ads campaigns for clients primarily in SaaS, Manufacturing Automation and Healthtech. Book a 30-minute consultation with a senior, Google-certified member of our team today. During the call, we’ll answer any Google Ads-related questions you have and audit your account to provide your marketing team with valuable feedback they can implement to double or maybe even triple your lead generation.
