Google ads are one of the most profitable aspects of my business. Running them isn't easy though. Fortunately, there are a number of premium PPC software tools that make it much easier to turn a profit.
There are three paid PPC software products that I consider mandatory and have a tremendous ROI. You don't need all the tools I'm about to share, but if you run google ads at scale, you will want them!
#1 SpyFu (Most Recommended)
How I Use It: Premium Google ads tool that is a huge part of every Google Ads campaign I create. I use it to research competitors, track PPC campaign performance metrics and performing keyword research for my PPC ads.
Cost: Free trial available. Save up to 30% on annual plans. I suggest the basic plan paid annually to start (it will give you a lot of fire power). If you start a free trial with ClickCease (more on this in a second) you can redeem this deal (it's a no brainer).
Alternative to: iSpionage, SEMRush, Google Keyword Planner
The best tool on the market for creating and optimizing PPC campaigns.
Perform keyword research and find profitable keywords
See what terms your competitors are targeting
See the ad creatives and copy that your competitors are using
Get estimated costs for terms
Import suggestions directly into your own Google Ads account
Run audits and reports for clients
SpyFu is a powerful tool for reverse engineering your competitors Google ads. You can also perform deep keyword research and find terms that will be most effective in your paid search campaigns.
It doesn't work with Microsoft ads or Bing ads yet but the Google ads features are more than enough to justify the price point.
There are other some search engine optimization features that come with SpyFu that aren't related to PPC but are also nice.
Something that stands out with SpyFu is the accuracy and depth of their data. Although many tools like AHREFs and SEMRush offer their own versions of paid advertising research, their data is extremely incomplete.
If you don't believe me, analyze your own website and see if either of these tools shows more than a small fraction of your active ad campaigns.
What appears in search engines won't always appear in these other tools, but SpyFu does it much better.
#2 AdEspresso
How I Use It: Central dashboard for creating, testing and optimizing Facebook and Google Adwords PPC campaigns. I can perform bulk editing on all of my ads in a fraction of the time that it would take to do it all manually. Tedious tasks are a thing of the past thanks to adespresso.
Cost: Free 14 day trial available.
Alternative To: Adzooma, Opteo, WordStream
The best of the PPC management software tools I've ever tested. I run and optimize all of my PPC campaigns through Adespresso. It makes split testing elements easy and it feels far more intuitive than the default Google Adwords dashboard.
Adespresso does much more than just PPC campaigns. It also helps me manage ads campaigns on multiple PPC accounts and also accounts for Facebook and Instagram. This lets me have almost all of my ad campaigns in one area
Adespresso works as a near complete replacement to the Google ads editor and the default Google ads dashboard. I manage multiple accounts in my plan and it's a lifesaver.
#3 ClickCease
How I Use It: Saves money on click fraud.
Cost: Free Trial available.
Alternative To: PPC Protect
ClickCease Analyzes clicks from Facebook and Google and identifies fraudulent activity or costs that should be reimbursed. Saves me $100s of dollars per month.
In the past 3 months, it has saved me over $1,400!
Although they provide you with the information you need to create a Google ads refund request, most of the value comes from the automated click fraud blocking.
The only down side is that requesting a refund from Google is an extremely tedious if not impossible task now.
There are other tools for managing your PPC accounts, but these are the big three that everyone should consider if they truly want to maximize their marketing efforts. If you're an Amazon seller then you may want to check out my article about Amazon keyword research tools.