You certainly have learned by now that dealing with competitors in the world of SEO is a common occurrence. Between beating the competition in sales and clicks, and outranking them in SERPs, it can be a persistent effort to stay ahead of them. In marketing, things are no different – but the playing field is a lot more even in many cases. You may have discovered that competitors are using crafty tricks to encroach upon paid advertising territory that would otherwise be your own. There’s a reason for this, but there’s no reason that you can’t turn the tables (or go on offense if they haven’t done this to you already). Below, we’ll talk about how you can creep up on the competition and begin bidding on their own keywords with great success.

Buy Up Those Misspellings

If one or more of your competitors has a name that is easy to misspell or otherwise subject to errors when typing it, then this can be a prime opportunity for you with respect to ad buying. By gathering up all of those silly misspellings and targeting them, you can quickly begin to encroach upon a competitor’s territory by pinging URLs to people who were originally looking for them. Search engines do not prohibit this activity, and it allows competitors to get really creative in a lot of cases in which the company itself hasn’t thought to do the same – against you or for itself. Most of these ad campaigns will not be very costly to you, but they will provide access in many cases to a decent number of individuals who are searching for the same products or services that you provide.

Grab Frustrated Competitors’ Customers

A variety of niches and industries deal with customers who are constantly cancelling their subscriptions and moving elsewhere. Why not try to pick up some of those disaffected customers as they leave your competitor’s clutches? By comparing quality scores for these keyword combinations (“cancel [competitor]”, “how to cancel service with [competitor]”, unsubscribe from [competitor]”) and then comparing your ad budget options, you very well may be able to pick up customers who are not tired of the service or product they are purchasing in general – they’re just tired of the service or quality of the product they’re receiving from your competitors.

Jab Your Competitors Through Ad Copy

While the aforementioned two tactics revolve around being sneaky in a way that most competitors won’t realize immediately, you have an additional option when it comes to pinging URLs to your competitors’ audiences: go toe to toe with them in blatant keyword results! One potential avenue here is to make fun of your competitor by using their slogan against them; for instance, a company who has a slogan of “Real Food Done Right” might be targeted by you with some ad copy that says “Real Food That’s REALLY Done Right”. Depending on your niche and the competitor’s level of brand recognition, a good chunk of your audience might recognize the jab, laugh about it, and proceed to click on your ad instead. Excellent ad copy should usually be subtle, but in cases like this, it is perfectly acceptable (and encouraged) to be blatant in the type of targeting that you use.