Keyword spy services have become very popular with marketers who run pay per click campaigns. The best services are usually expensive monthly subscriptions. But now a new keyword spy application with a low 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 applications, including Keyword Elite, Affiliate Elite, and SEO Elite, has come out with a free Firefox browser application that allows anyone to peer inside the pay per click campaigns of AdWords advertisers. He calls it PPC Web Spy.

What will you see with this magic tool? For starters, the keywords on which each advertiser is bidding and the ad copy they are using with those keywords. This is the same data that is provided by the monthly subscription services, like Keyword Spy. Of course, there is a catch, as there usually is with free software.

The catch is that you will only be able to view a small sample of just 10 keywords from each advertiser's campaigns. This is just enough to get you interested, and that is the idea. Once you have downloaded the application 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 encourages you to buy the Platinum version of the software and get up to 100 of the advertiser's best money-making 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 basically unlimited access to ALL the keywords that each advertiser is using to run their ads. But if you aren't yet a serious pay per click advertiser, the inexpensive 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 information is a must have, and it will not be long before you find it strange to view AdWords advertisements WITHOUT the PPC Web Spy program switched on (there is a button in the lower right part of your Firefox browser which allows you to turn it off).

So how good is the tool?

Initially, when I first downloaded the PPC Web Spy program I noticed that the software would sometimes show the "now loading" icon but refuse to display any keywords. I had a suspicion that the advertisers for these adverts had huge keyword lists. But it seems that the PPC Web Spy service goes through upgrades and when this happens you will be prompted to re-download the plugin. This only takes a few seconds and you are back up again (though a browser restart is necessary). So the service is constantly getting better.

I find that I use this PPC Web Spy toll virtually all the time now when performing Google searches. Is it the BEST keyword spy service out there? No. But I believe, for now, it's the best inexpensive keyword spy software 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/

More Resources for Keyword Spy

Back To My Resources