Use PPC Spend insights to reveal the estimated ad spend of your competitors, evaluate their potential budgets, and see how they deliver on their paid search strategies.
The PPC Spend provides valuable metrics which can be used to help you:
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Plan and justify your paid search budgets.
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Reveal the effectiveness of competitors’ paid search advertising activities.
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Identify significant shifts in competitive PPC spend spend over time.
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Evaluate investment per channel based on competitors' PPC spend.
- Grow clients’ budgets based on their knowledge of competitor and industry PPC spend (mainly for agencies).
PPC Spend insights provide an estimation of the websites’ spending on PPC search terms over the analyzed time period. This metric allows you to analyze paid keywords attached to Google Search and Shopping (PLAs) ads.
Similarweb's calculation for PPC Spend is based on three existing data points: Paid search visits per website per country, Paid keywords per website per country, and CPC per country.
PPC Spend is calculated monthly -- taking into account monthly paid search traffic and cost-per-click data. I.e., the PPC Spend estimations for May uses the CPC and Traffic data from May; and, the PPC Spend estimation for June uses the CPC and Traffic data from June, etc.
This is only an estimation of PPC Spend.
While we strive to provide highly accurate PPC Spend estimations, there will be a margin of difference with the calculation for every website due to various factors, such as:
- Missing paid keywords per domain
- Missing CPC data
- Volatility of the CPC metric
- Changes in Google’s SERP for Paid Ads (SERPs change multiple times a day)
- Targeted Ads for audiences using specific demographic filters (age, interests, etc.)
- Missing local campaigns
Additional calculation considerations:
- The primary source is Google Search, however other search engines are also included in the paid visits metric.
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PPC Spend is calculated using Paid Search visits, and does not include Display or Referral visits.
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Data is available for domains with >5K paid search visits during the selected time period.
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Desktop data is available from January 2020 onwards. Mobile Web data is available beginning from July 2020.
- We do not use an average CPC over a 12 month period.
- If CPC for a keyword for a certain month is not available, we will use the latest CPC value we have.
NOTE: The parts of the SERP being used to calculate our PPC Spend metric are the main SERP page including the PLAs. E.g :
...and not the other SERP pages (Shopping, Video, etc):
PPC Spend data and insights are located in two areas within Similarweb:
- Website Research module. Go to the Website Analysis > Search > Paid Search Overview page.
- Search Intelligence Module. Go to Keyword Research > Website Explorer > Landing Pages and click on the Paid Pages tab
Pro Tips: Use the filters on the right of the graph to view PPC Spend data by Desktop, Mobile Web, or combined Total Traffic. And, don't forget to click the + to pin the PPC Spend insights to your dashboards. The PPC Spend widget is also included in the Paid Search Performance Dashboard Template.
PPC Spend Over Time
Check out your competitors’ PPC spending trend over time. By reviewing over time, you will notice the rise and fall in spending activity, and this will point to potential seasonal spending on campaigns. When reviewing the overall investment in their PPC campaigns, you will get a view of a competitor's annual or quarterly budgeting habits for Paid Search campaigns.
PPC Spend Currencies
You also have the ability to instantly see PPC Spend estimations in other major currencies. Just use the drop-down in the top right of the insight graph to select the currency you wish to explore.
Analyze competitors' PPC spending in GBP, EU, AUD, and JPY.
Each month's currency value is calculated based on the exchange rate from that time, so you can be sure that it’s historically accurate and relevant.
This function should minimize the need for external calculations for those users who need to report in currencies other than USD.
Q: Is the PPC Spend BETA prototype for search ad spend or across other digital ad formats?
A: Currently, It is just for Paid Search Ad spend, but we hope to develop estimations for other paid digital channels shortly.
Q: Why is data in PPC Spend different from what I have in Google Ads?
A: Similarweb data should be viewed as complementary to your Google Ads or Google Analytics data. The Paid Traffic and PPC Spend estimations available in the Paid Search Overview and other Paid Search modules are not intended to tell you how much you are spending on Google Ads. It is recommended that you use your own internal analytics for that purpose.
Instead, Similarweb data sets, PPC Spend being a great example, are intended to provide a benchmark for comparing your site’s paid search activity to a competitor’s or multiple competitors side by side.
For more information, see ROAS and Ad Spend: How to Make Sure Your Online Advertising is Efficient.
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