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Keyword spy software has become very popular with marketers who run pay per click campaigns. The best services are usually expensive monthly subscriptions. But recently a new keyword spy application with a low one-time fee has become available, making it 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 put out a free Firefox browser application that allows anyone to peer inside the PPC campaigns of AdWords advertisers. He calls his application PPC Web Spy.
What will you see with this magic tool? For starters, the keywords on which advertisers are bidding and the ad copy they are using for those keywords. This is the same data that is provided by the monthly subscription sites, 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 random 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 downloaded the plugin and started using it, it will not be long before you spot the tempting UPGRADE button at the bottom of the keyword popup screen - the one that pushes you to buy the Platinum version of the tool 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 would say 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 serious 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 copy, average cost per keyword, daily ad spend, and the number of clicks per day for the advertiser.
For any AdWords advertiser, this information is gold, and it will not be long before you feel strange viewing AdWords advertisements WITHOUT the PPC Web Spy program switched on (there is a toggle in the lower right part of your Firefox browser which allows you to turn it off).
So how useful is the tool?
Initially, when I first installed the PPC Web Spy program I noticed that the software would sometimes show the "now loading" icon but refuse to display any keywords. I suspected that the advertisers for these ads had very large keyword lists. But it seems that the PPC Web Spy service goes through upgrades and when this takes place you will be prompted to re-download the software. This only takes a few seconds and you are back up and running (though a browser restart is required). So the service is constantly improving.
I have found that I use the PPC Web Spy software virtually all the time now when initiating Google searches. Is it the BEST keyword spy service out there? No. But I believe, for now, it is the best inexpensive 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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