If you have followed this blog for a while, you probably have noticed I don’t endorse products or do paid reviews. But if I come across a tool I like (and actually works), I am happy to share it. I recently tested a tool called PPC Bully and have to say it was pretty impressive. The tool allows you to track certain keywords in a niche and find the profitable ads, without having to do the trial and error yourself. It shows which ads are working the best, the ad variations on that account and even the landing page for each. Basically the selling point of the tool is that you let others in the market provide you with valuable data so you don’t have to use trial and error. Its not a magic program to take all the work out of PPC, but it does make launching a successful campaign right off the bat much more likely.
Here are some screenshots from my live account. I did a test of the “Acai” niche that I know a lot of marketers are running right now.
First you enter the keywords you want to track
Then you wait a day or so for the system to fully scan the marketplace and collect data.
It shows the keywords, the profitable ads for each keyword, and the scan history.
Here I selected the keyword “pure acai” to see the most profitable ads.
Finally, I selected one of the profitable campaigns to see all the advertisers ad variations.
Right now they are only pulling Adwords data, but are expanding soon into YSM and Adcenter. It’s a very powerful system. I resisted trying the “spy” tools for a while, but now that everyone else is using them I figured it’s time to check them out. Of the different ones I have tested PPC Bully is the most legit.
I too don’t like to use spy tools – messes up my take on the niche. I tested wordbutler, which is similar, for their 1 week trial, was not too impressed.
I know how you feel, no one is more old school that me;) I am slowly changing my habits though to try some of these.
Do I think you have to use these to be successful? Absolutely NOT. But I’m always looking for ways to save time.
Ya we can’t all have our way forever though. You gotta roll with the punches to survive. This industry things change quick and not everyone shares that info.
I try and demo everything I can get my hands on and not talk about things unless I’ve tried them first hand.
Thanks for the review, Chad.
I’ve heard of ppc bully but never looked into their product. This looks interesting.
Tim
Ya I was impressed with what I seen and am going to get it this week, once I get my new site built I want to run PPC with.
How does it determines profitable ads vs non profitable ads?
From their FAQ:
Ad PI = (Number of Days Seen * Percentage Seen) / Number of Days since Last Seen
I actually noticed the PPC Bully banner the other day and thought “WTF?” because I know that you’ve never seem to endorse ANY paid tool, other than KD, which is really cool!
When I saw the banner – I immediately checked it out… just didn’t get a chance to sign up for it yet. I will soon, though, through your link, of course.
Good review, Chad!
Will this help find stuff on the content network? I have developed a strategy to make good money using the content network, but it is nearly impossible to find tools that help you optimize it. Everybody thinks content traffic is garbage, but I have proof otherwise. When done right it works great. Just wish I could find more tools geared toward it. If you or anyone have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them. Thanks!
I don’t think this currently pulls content network data.
I agree with you 100% though, the content network is gold when done right.
PPC Bully Goes Live…
Do you think you would like to know that as soon as you launch a new ppc campaign it will be a profitable one and not a money sucking black hole? When you create a campaign you can have the confidence that it is going to make you money, welcome to PP…
Nice review Chad.
I actually just signed up for http://www.ispionage.com/ over the past weekend and so far I’m extremely impressed. It tracks all 3 engines currently and offers a lot of good data in my opinion.
I’d like to give PPC Bully a try to and see how the 2 compare with one another, so I just may do that.
Clarke
Why does it say in the screenshots that zero of the ads it tracked were affiliates. Now that is obviously BS, especially based on just reading some of the ad copy of the tracked ads.
That said, what does that column track exactly? How does it tell what are affiliate ads and what are merchant ads? It obviously doesn’t seem to work too well…
I guess the real question though is has the expense of using this been more than covered by the profits you have realized as a direct result of using this? Or would your ROI have been higher if you hadn’t used it?
Ive been in the beta of PPC Bully since the beginning. Its a solid data mining program and their support is good. I recommend.
Do you think this tool could ruin PPC affiliate marketing?
Not really, its already about as ruined as it can get
Lol! Thanks Mr. Calacanis.
How is ispionage.com and ppcbully.com different from keycompete.com. There are so many tools out and with no reviews covering which ones are effective and which ones are duds, it is really hard to decide which one to subscribe to. Chad any comments?
Haven’t tried that one, I have tried a couple others and bully is the only one I like so far.
Anyway, i have playing around with ispionage and so far I like the data it gives back. For any keyword I can find out what ad copy is get the most CTR. I can then change my ads to have the similar tone. So far I tried that i did work at some extent.
Nice thing my friends told me about this but i’ve never sen it before thanks for the information
Have you tried the expensive one, Under Cover Profits?
Or the really cheap AdSpyPro? I jumped in UCP at the beginning, but the $300 per month killed me after 3 months.
I have Adspypro but have never installed it, like an idiot!
Yet ANOTHER tool to rip off others’ hard work and testing. People wonder why ppc affiliate marketing is the cesspool of online business.
tell me – what have you got to lose – if its all about making money then – for 49.00 for the first month its a pretty cheap ebook if it doesnt work – huh – if it does then you have gold for ever