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Macro Research vs Micro Research
We have heard the terms Macroeconomy and Microeconomy in economic world.
Based on Wikipedia, macroeconomy is a branch of economics that deals with the performance, structure, and behavior of a national or regional economy as a whole. Macroeconomist study things like GDP, unemployment rates, and price indices to understand how the whole economy function within and between nations.
Microeconomy in the other hand, learn about the interaction between producers, distributors and customers. They learn about how goods and money being distributed, about supply and demand.
“Macro Research” – “Micro Research”
In the market research world, there’re also two kinds of research needed to be conducted. Macro and micro research.
Macro research is doing research about current and upcoming trends based on This works horizontally based on global demand factor and work vertically over certain timeframe inbetween trends. This is about doing research BETWEEN existing markets.
Micro research in the other hand, is about doing research “locally” or get into details of certain keywords (in terms of online research), doing small surveys and polls WITHIN a market or even a niche market.
Just like in trading world, we need both of them when it comes to building a long term online or even offline business. It’s easier of course, doing it online. We can do “macro research” by aggregating some informations about certain market from many news sites, trend sites, blogosphere, etc.
Some of the best sites for this that I know so far are:
- Trendsspotting (RSSed at left menu of this website)
- Techcrunch (a technology blog), etc.
For micro research though, there’re certain websites you can use, like:
-Yahoo and Google Groups and Answer
- Forums
- survey sites
- put polls at your website,
- Keyword Tools like Wordtracker and the one I’ve posted earlier, Google’s free KeywordTool (Adwords account needed), etc.
I hope you got the point. So in order to start building a business, it’s very crucial to do the research. The longer the research you conduct, the better your business will be able to position itself in this whole new game. We’ve heard that most of successful businesses are those that come at the right place, at the right time.
How can they do that? Are they just jump into their market by accident or coincidentally? Well… most of them didn’t. Amazon.com took 7 years preparing their business. How long would you?
Best Competitor Keywords Spy Tool for PPC
There’re a bunch of Market research tools on the internet. If you’ve been sometime into SEM (Search Engine Marketing),
particularly PPC (Pay-Per-Click) Advert in online marketing, you must have seen so many tools and services created and developed for doing market research through keyword research aside from online surveys and polls.
Some of them are great tools that connected to an online web-service backend, some of them are just simple tools with fancy GUI, and some even just a simple tool with simple GUI created to do certain things.
Some are free, but many great others are paid ones.
But still, when it comes to PPC, keyword research is the core work that you have to do yourself because how well you do your homework will determine how well your PPC campaign will do.
This particular tool that I stumbled upon and about to introduce as one of the best PPC research tools, is no different. It has paid package also, but only has difference in some optional features for advanced marketers and PPC veterans. If you’re a startup and just want to do simple competitor research, you can use the free version of the software. Always try first and then decide whether you like it or not.
The tool called PPCWebSpy, and it created by Brad Callen, a well known figure in internet marketing world.
So what this tool can actually do for you? You can read how it works at it’s official website, but here’s a glance:
This tool is not a standalone software that you can run on your computer. It’s a plugin/addon that integrates with your browser. So after installing and activating it, everytime for example you search using Google, there’ll be an additional button below every sponsored search result called “View Keywords”.
When you clicked it, it’ll show you up a pop up window that lists keywords of the ads that being used by the advertiser. On the window, you can see immediately the bid position of the keywords, the Average CPC (Cost-Per-Click), the maximum CPC, the number of clicks per day, and the cost per day. You’ll get everything you need at a single click.
You can even click at the keyword and see what the ads the advertiser put the particular keyword on looked like. In short, you can see transparently the competitor’s campaign.
If by any chance you’d like to visit the URL of one of those ads without being tracked by the advertiser, you can also choose to show the target URLs of those ads. This option would then show up the target URL under the ads.
So by using this, you can literally spy on other advertisers on the same keyword you’re choosing. By knowing what keywords your competitor using will give you a really big advantage.
You can use the same keywords as the highest converting ads use. The indicator of high converting ads is that the ads would keep showing up on the search result from time to time, at least months. Why? because if it’s not converting, the advertiser would not keep running it.
On the other hand, by knowing the competitor’s keywords, you can also decide not to use those keywords, and instead, using other similar or related keywords than your competitor use. It would also give a glimpse of certain keywords that most of the competitors use at the same market. So, it’ll really give you a lot of insights just by installing this great tool.
As for me, there’re some factors that this particular software has that make it a winner compared to other tools.
- It was created with online marketers in mind
- It was created by a veteran online marketer that really know what he’s doing
- It has online community as support that will sound what features they need and what things needed to be improved
- It integrates with Google’s search result
- This tool is a killer research tool that at the same time act as a product itself
- The paid version is one time fee package
- It’s viral! If you know what it means, that’s just….great
Most of the advantages above are spesific, and you simply won’t find it anywhere else.
So, if you’re doing PPC advertising and just want to take your campaign to the next level and stop wasting money on ads that are not converting, this is a must tool. Using this means you’ve saved up a sum of money to buy different tools and services. Missing this means you’ve missed one of the best PPC tools on the net.
You can download and use it for free. And if you really like it, you can upgrade it anytime just for one time fee depends on your needs.
PS: If you’ve downloaded and installed it, feel free to share your experiences with us through the comment box below.