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You can learn a lot about your competition if you have the right tools. With rapid advancements in technology, you no longer have to do the legwork as there are many competitor analysis tools out there that are built to help you stay ahead of the game.
However, determining which are the best ones can leave you in a dilemma. As a marketer, you want to ensure that you are investing in the right ones that would give you the most ROI.
While there is no one-size-fits-all solution, we’ll help you narrow it down to these five tools that will enable you to spy on your competition better.
With over 450 million domains in their database, SEMrush is a powerful tool that can help you build a more comprehensive picture of what your competition’s digital strategy looks like. It is one of the most widely used tools in the market.
They have expanded their platform from just focusing on search engine marketing metrics, to a more holistic tool that provides visibility into your whole online strategy. This includes competitive research features that allow you to perform a domain analysis on any website that you want. It shows you the top SERP results and keywords in real-time and more, which helps you identify the kind of keywords and backlinks that your competitors are ranking well for. This data can then be used to optimize your own organic and paid campaigns.
What is great about SEMrush is that you can generate reports on a competitor’s advertising campaign (including search, display and shopping ads), as well as their keyword strategy and content strategy across channels. This makes it an effective tool in reverse engineering your competition’s digital strategy, so that you can learn and implement their best practices to your own strategy as well as discover new opportunities for your brand.
Price: Free trial available. Offers a monthly subscription starting from $99.95/month.
SimilarWeb is another comprehensive tool that you can use to gain insight into your competitor’s website traffic and analysis. Unlike SEMrush, which is an online visibility platform that provides analytics on SEO, PPC, social media and content marketing, SimilarWeb is used mainly for website statistics.
You can use SimilarWeb to look up any domain or URL to check competitor traffic, engagement and digital strategy. It provides information on category performance and traffic share, giving you a clear benchmark on where you stand against your competitors.
Another great feature is their Market Channels Analysis. It tells you what channels your competitors are spending their marketing budget on (i.e. direct, email, referrals, social, organic, paid and display), the percentage of traffic coming from each channel and even their top referral sites. You can add and remove competitors to compare and monitor regularly.
The metrics they provide are useful in backing up your recommendations for things such as ad budget optimization, and make finding sites and influencers to collaborate with to improve your content strategy easier.
Price: Free version available. Custom pricing for Enterprise.
Social media spend is increasing every year, with more than $89 billion spent in it 2019. With more brands recognising the value of social media marketing, social media analytics is fast becoming a widely sought after tool.
While there are many out there, Awario is one of the best. It monitors data across an extensive network of social media platforms, forums, blogs, web pages and news sites.
By setting up alerts for your top competitors, you can track brand mentions in real-time and generate reports based on mention statistics, alert comparisons and even influencers. This helps you discover which channels your competitors are on, untapped channels that your audience are on, and who the influencers are in your industry.
One interesting feature to highlight is their Share of Voice chart. It is a comparison chart showing the number of mentions and reach of your company and top competitors you’ve identified. This will help you track how your campaigns are performing compared to theirs.
Price:Starts at $29/month
If you are a content marketing specialist, BuzzSumo is a handy tool for you to find out what content is trending online and how well they are performing across the board.
It makes content analyses of your competition much easier as you can find information on what is their most popular or shared content according to channel. This can help inform your own strategy on what type of content most interests your audience and what kind of content works best on which channels. You can then build a kickass content strategy based on these learnings.
A good content strategy also includes collaborating with influencers in your industry who can improve brand awareness and build trust with your customers. BuzzSumo helps you discover such influencers as you can view who are the top sharers of your competitor’s content.
Price: Starts from $99/month
Ever wondered what your competitors are doing for their email strategy? Before you hit the “subscribe” button to their newsletter, you should check out Owletter. It provides analytics on your competition’s newsletters, giving you insight into their frequency, schedule and trends.
Its simple and user-friendly dashboard displays all the email newsletters that your competition has sent out. If you are new to email marketing, or are looking to refresh your template, this is particularly useful in helping you figure out what type of template design and content works well for your audience.
To some, their analytics may be considered basic, but they provide great insight into best practices that you can leverage for your brand’s email marketing strategy. By seeing what your competitors are doing, you can apply what works – for example, best times to send for the highest open rates – and what kind of content is considered spam, so you can avoid making those mistakes and spend your budget more effectively.
Price: 14-day free trial available. Starts at $19/month
With any of these 5 competitor analysis tools, you're bound to stay steps ahead of the pack! If you need more help with crunching data and improving your marketing strategies, check out the GetCraft Marketplace to connect with professionals who can work with your brand.
