iSpionage Almost Perfect Keyword Research & PPC Tool

February 22, 2010

Today, I would like to make a review about iSpionage a keyword research tool and competitive intelligence site. Let me tell you something, I have never felt comfortable using those type of online services to do my PPC work, but this time those guys offered me a free account with them to test them out and make this paid review.

How iSpionage works?

It is really easy to use and get used with iSpionage panel, there are three top sections on your members account: Keyword Monitor, keyword & domain research, and PPC Campaign Builder

Keyword Monitor: Here is the main section where you should start. You will need to create an account with an URL or your main keyword then you press “Get keywords Ideas” and the shows starts!
keyword & domain research: Here you can spy on your competitors sites. For example adding godaddy.com there will be a summary which will give you a bunch of information like: Monthly Ad budget (estimated), Top keywords in Google, Yahoo! and Bing, top competitors, Top Ads that your competitor site is using. Also at the top you can find all the ads, ppc keywords, site keywords and competitors.
PPC campaign builder The name says it all, this section will make your life easier as a super affiliate you will save a lot of time! You will not waste your time trying to create your campaigns manually in case you would like to create 100 campaigns.

Advantages using iSpionage:

The first major advantage to using this keyword research tool is that they get keywords from all three major search engines (Google, Yahoo and Bing) which many of other tools just focuss on Google and believe me that there is a lot of money to be made with Yahoo! and Bing.
Secondly, ISpionage updates it’s data daily, while others seems to update on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. In this business two weeks old data might actually hurt you more than it will help you. The top affiliates are always changing and refining campaigns so you’ll need something that is up to date. That is why I was not comfortable using other service like iSpionage because the data that you receive is not far accurate than updating it daily.
Lastly, ISpionage has “Projects” where you can monitor certain keywords or websites over a period of time. This is my favorite feature that this tool has, I am really excited using it in a full mode. I will make an example of how you can use this.

First of all let’s look at the normal approach affiliates use to find a niche:

1. Find a potential offer to promote
2. Do market research for the product and the keyword research for the product
3. Start a direct linking PPC campaign
4. If profitable, create your own landing page, and crank up the campaign.

An Example of a Project

Let’s start creating a project with a keyword “Credit Report” which they already have a demo project:

create project iSpionage

After creating a project, iSpionage will start getting the data of your new project but I will recommend to wait few days till you get enough data from them. That’s why I used the credit report demo project because don’t have enough time to wait. After getting all data you will see something like this:

After clicking in the project that you saved you will find a lot of scary information as a PPC advertiser:

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Really check the results here is all what you need to make money online as an affiliate marketer:

Top 10 Competitors ranked by impression share

Estimated Maximum Impressions:

Keywords: Which is very important for your keyword research! I just can say WOW

Advertisers:

Related Keywords:

This is just an example of basic use of iSpionage, with this great tool you are able to analyze your competitors like landing pages, ads and keywords that they are using it. If you use this tool with a more specific niche you will definitively find some gold mines here. In the following two months when my membership ends from another keyword tool I will start using iSpionage as my favorite Keyword software for my SEO and PPC stuffs!

iSpionage – The Keyword research tool

The fuel that drives every PPC campaign is your keyword list. The success of your campaign will live and die by the keywords that you target. You need to make sure that you are targeting the right keywords and that your keyword list is extensive and robust. To perform good keyword research you need tools to help you. At iSpionage we have designed and created a new keyword research tool to help you perform keyword research in an effective and efficient way.

The major features to iSpionage keyword research tool are;

1. Keyword & Domain Research
2. PPC Campaign Builder

Major Feature 1: Keyword & Domain Research Module

Using iSpionage, you can get the keywords your competitors are using with just one click. With that same click you will get access to all your competitor’s keywords and estimate of the keyword search traffic, ads & ad positioning and CPC data. You can even see a list of all your other direct competitors. So if you looking at optimizing your PPC campaign without spending a lot of time and money, you should consider using it. Below is a screen shot of what you get when you enter the domain “Godaddy.com” in the search bar.

With the advertiser summary, you can get an estimate of their:

PPC budget
Google & Yahoo PPC keywords.

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Here is a screen shot of the advertiser’s ad copy history with first seen and last seen date.

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If you are interested in generating more keywords for your campaign, you can just type in a keyword and iSpionage will take that keyword and give you the top competitors in both Google and Yahoo. Additionally, you will also get a list of hundreds of related keywords that you can add to your campaigns via iSpionage keyword bag which will allow you to create ad groups and build a campaign for upload to Google, Yahoo and Bing directly.

Screen shot of keyword results: web hosting

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Major Feature 2: PPC Campaign Builder

While the previous feature set was all about keyword research and ad copies, this toolkit is more about creating and organizing keywords for your PPC campaigns.

Start by typing in your base word and let the tool generate the list of related keywords. Your next step will be to select those you want to focus on (like in the previous steps, average search volume and advertisers’ competition will help you to choose).

Just select those phrases you are interested in and click Add Selected to “My Keyword Bag” (the option hides behind “Actions” link).

Clean Up Keyword Lists

You can now go to “Keyword Clean Up” tab to sort and clean up the list:

Sort the list;
Remove duplicates;
Keep / Remove lines containing any specified word;
Keep lines with the specified number of keywords;
Remove the specified characters (e.g. @$#/%^&*~_=+);
Remove the specified words

Group the Keywords

Start by giving a name to your campaign for further reference. Now provide the grouping criteria:

Create a group by base word (Keep lines containing this word); AND / OR
Create a group by excluding some words from the list AND / OR
Create a group based on the number of words in a phrase (Keep lines with the number of keywords).
Don’t forget to give each group a name (I suggest giving a descriptive name based on the grouping criteria: e.g. “3-word”, “no-stop words”, etc)

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Create an Ad Campaign

When you are done grouping your keywords, you can now go to “Campaign Builder” tab to create your ad campaign:

Name the campaign;
Set the search engine;
For each group specify the match type (broad, phrase, exact) and the maximum cost per click.

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The final step is in the “Ad Setup” where you write and create your ads details (each ad headline, text and destination URL). Once you are done, generate the output and you can upload it to Google, Yahoo or Bing directly.

The is a useful tool for search marketers looking to get competitive intelligent data to improve or optimize their campaigns. It will also cut down the time it takes to create campaigns especially for keyword research and launching the campaigns in the three major search engines.

All the information provided by iSpionage’s Keyword Research tool is displayed in an easy to use interface. It allows the user to drill down to get more details without being overwhelmed with an excess of information. By using it you can spend more time developing a better PPC strategy that will save money, time and increase the quality and ROI of your PPC campaigns.

I should mention also that you can try this great tool for just $1 for 7 days only in FULL mode not just demo and with limits. Try it and let me know what do you think about it.