Keyword spy services have become very popular with marketers who run pay per click campaigns. The better known services are generally expensive monthly subscriptions. But recently a new keyword spy application with an inexpensive one-time fee has become available, making this the candidate keyword search engine for the masses.
Brad Callen, author of the well known "Elite" series of keyword tools, including Keyword Elite, Affiliate Elite, and SEO Elite, has come out with a free Firefox browser plugin that allows anyone to peer inside the PPC campaigns of AdWords advertisers. He calls his application PPC Web Spy.
What will you find out with this magic tool? For starters, the keywords on which advertisers are bidding and the advertisement copy they are using for those keywords. This is the same information that is provided by the monthly subscription services, like Keyword Spy. Of course, there is a catch, as there usually is with free applications.
The catch is that you will only be able to see a small sample of just 10 keywords from each advertiser's account. This is just enough to get you interested, and that is the idea. Once you have obtained the plugin and started using it, it won't be long before you spot the tempting UPGRADE button at the bottom of the keyword popup screen - the one that pushes you to purchase the Platinum version of the plugin and get up to 100 of the advertiser's most profitable keywords.
Is it really worth upgrading? Well, if you can justify the expensive monthly subscription rate of a service like Keyword Spy then I recommend you go with that. You'll get essentially unlimited access to ALL the keywords that each advertiser is using to run their ads. But if you aren't yet a full-time pay per click advertiser, the cheap Platinum version of PPC Web Spy is well worth the investment.
After you have installed PPC Web Spy you will discover that all AdWords advertisements appear with a green "View Keywords" button. Click on the button and you get a popup screen with keywords, ad text, average cost per keyword, daily ad spend, and the number of clicks per day for the advertiser.
For any AdWords advertiser, this data is gold, and it won't be long before you find it strange to view AdWords advertisements WITHOUT the PPC Web Spy program switched on (there is a toggle in the lower right portion of your Firefox browser which allows you to turn it off).
So how good is the application?
Initially, after I first installed the PPC Web Spy program I noticed that the plugin would sometimes put up the "now loading" icon but refuse to display any keywords. I had a suspicion that the advertisers for these ads had huge keyword lists. But it appears that the PPC Web Spy service goes through upgrades and when this happens you will be prompted to re-download the software. This only takes a few seconds and you are back up again (though a browser restart is necessary). So the software is constantly improving.
I have found that I use the PPC Web Spy toll virtually all the time now when initiating Google searches. Is it the BEST keyword spy software out there? No. But I think, for now, it is the best low-cost keyword spy application that you are likely to get your hands on.
Stephen Carter is a software developer and internet marketer. To learn more about PPC Web Spy and what bonus items are available to it's customers, check out his PPC Web Spy review page at http://www.ppcwebspyprogram.com/
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