I bought AdSpy Pro (Horrors! Not an affiliate link! Eff it. It is now). What a cool program. OK, you gotta see past the hype that it is better and costs less than Google Cash Detective and UnderCover Profits. It does cost less. Is it better? Dunno. But I damn sure ain’t spending $500 and a monthly stipend on the one, or $1500 for the other. I bought ASP for $47 (I was emailed a coupon for 30% off) and am completely amazed at the information it can gather. And no monthly fees.
So what does it do? It literally spies on Adword campaigns (and soon Yahoo and MSN apparently). Load ASP up with some keywords and it will determine what campaigns are running for that keyword, if it is profitable and what the URL is to the sale page. Why does that matter? Because if homes is successful with the campaign then simply replicate the success. Dude won’t be continually running an ad with a keyword unless they are making money with it. Figure out what is working and use it! “But splorkie, that’s cheating. It’s illegal. It’s wrong.” Why? How many copycats are riding the coattail of the iPod? Look at the movies. TV shows. There are few new ideas. Everybody just waits until somebody comes up with a hit then they jump on the train. I’m jumping on the train like a lit hobo.
And for those that don’t want to do PPC; don’t. You can still use the tool to figure out what keywords are working. Say you want to see what people are searching for in the niche of dog training. Load up 100 keywords and see which ones are profitable. ASP is going to tell you. And do what with them? Optimize your site for those words that are working.
$47 for a cool tool. Heck, even a fun tool. It’s actually fun to see what keywords work and what doesn’t. It’s fun to find out of your 67 keywords that 13 are profitable. And then simply tool over and check out the ad that is bringing in the bucks.
Rock on.
7 responses so far ↓
Gary // Jun 24, 2007 at 6:31 am
Great in theory. Hoeverr many people don’t track campaigns at a keyword level, so many keywords that they are still bidding on are actually losers.
Plus, products are already available that block these software programs from spying.
Ultra cool:)
Tom // Jun 24, 2007 at 12:04 pm
How do you really know which keywords are profitable? If the advertiser isn’t tracking down to the keyword level (most don’t), the only assumption you can make is that he’s profitable on a campaign level. To duplicate that you’d need to know ALL his keywords.
Another thought: maybe the guy you’re watching isn’t profitable with his campaign but makes a profit on the backend after collecting email addresses from people who clicked his ad.
I used UnderCover Profits for 3 months. It’s cool and all and now you even get ClickFlipping 2.0 for free together with UCP. Problem is, I just don’t see the real benefit in the whole thing. Ad spying is all the rage right now, but people will be stepping on each others feet sooner or later. I cancelled UCP today.
Tom
Splork // Jun 24, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Yea I got the email from Steve for his script to keep people from spying on Adword campaigns. Pretty cool indeed.
I don’t necessarily use the program to figure out what keywords to use solely for PPC.
I use it to find out what affiliate programs people are using which are converting. I don’t have to waste time with other crap products that people aren’t buying. The research is already being done for me.
I use it to find out what keywords are working for affiliate programs. Then I can write articles or posts with those keywords. Sounds like a long shot but I know if some dude is creating a campaign on foot fungus and he keeps his ad working, using the same affiliate program, then I should be able to use the keyword with some SEO and drive some traffic to my blog. I can plug that keyword into nichebot and grab more if I needed. I don’t think I need all of the dudes keywords for this to work. Then use the affiliate program that is working.
If the dude is only getting emails for that campaign, and keeps paying for that campaign to be up, then he must be making money somewhere-somehow. Good to know.
Bottom line is if a campaign stays up for 14 days or more, there is a profitable reason for that. I can use the keywords or niche topic to make my own money.
Plus it was only $47. I spent that much taking my daughter to play putt-putt and eat lunch yesterday at the mall.
Tom // Jun 25, 2007 at 9:42 am
Well,
taking your daughter for lunch and putt-putt definitely sounds more fun that spying on Adwords
Tom
Splork // Jun 25, 2007 at 9:45 am
Yea Tom. Got me there. A hundred times more fun.
Mark Ling // Jul 16, 2007 at 12:31 pm
That competition analysis feature (for adwords and yahoo search marketing) has been in Traffic Travis for ages and you already had that with your affilorama membership
- Mark (affilorama.com)
Splork // Jul 16, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Hey Mark. True. It’s similar but not the same though. They could complement each other I think. That TT program is one bad-ass little program. Could be one of the most underrated programs in IM.
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