Collect data with these competitor analysis tools
Clarke Ricks
School of Business, Liberty University
BUSI 690: Policy and Strategy in Global Competition
Dr. Hicks
April 6, 2021
Collect data with these competitor analysis tools
Once you know which direct competitors you’ll be studying, it’s time to start diving into
research and data collection for your competitive analysis. The good news is that today
there are many different tools and software available that can make data collection for your
competitive analysis simpler, more efficient, and more accurate.
Let’s look at a few different resources that can help you gather key insights into
different aspects of your competition’s marketing approach from their product or service
positioning to their content marketing and social media efforts as well.
SEO Analysis
Ahrefs: checks any URL’s top-performing organic keywords and gets estimated traffic
reports around those keywords.
Alexa: helps define audience demographics and search rankings for your site as well
as your competitors websites.
SE Ranking: shows competitors’ paid and organic search performance, strategy, and
keywords.
PPC/keyword performance
SimilarWeb: gives insights into estimated monthly visits and key traffics sources for a
website. Helpful for determining a rough view of your competitor's marketshare.
SpyFu: helps you research and download the most profitable keywords your
competition is using in their PPC campaigns.
iSpionage: shows how many keywords competitors are using on Google Ads and
which ones they’re targeting, as well as their projected monthly budget.
SEMrush: helps identify your competition’s keywords, does a site audit, and analyzes
backlinks.
WhatRunsWhere: provides data around competitors’ advertising approaches across
the internet.
Social media performance
RivalIQ: shows how often competitors post across social channels, their average
engagement rates, and their most successful content.
Followerwonk: provides Twitter insights around follower demographics, key
influencers, and performance metrics.
Sprout Social: benchmarks around competitors’ social performance across social
channels, influencer identification, and reporting.
Email marketing
Owletter: analyses changes in sending frequency and spots trends in competitors’
emails.
MailCharts: aggregates emails and provides insight into frequency of email sends,
subject line tactics, and more.
Content marketing performance
BuzzSumo: helps you see the top-performing content for topics and for specific
competitors, as well as total social shares.
Monitor Backlinks: helps monitor backlinks each time someone references your
content, plus that of your competitors.
Feedly: aggregates content as it’s published so you can study topics covered by
competitors in one place.
Using these resources, start gathering data and dropping it into your competitive
analysis spreadsheet so your findings are all stored in a single, organized space.
A competitive analysis template
If you’re not still quite sure how to start laying out your template for your analysis,
here’s an example and template you can work from to get the ball rolling.
Let’s say you sell makeup brushes. Six pitfalls of competitor analysis in marketing
Now that you know how to put together a competitive assessment, let’s go over some
of the main pitfalls to be aware of that can throw off the insights you’ve gathered.
1. Competitive analysis is not a one-and-done exercise
Never revisiting your original insights (or never updating them, for that matter) can lead
to faulty data and poor decisions. Businesses are constantly evolving, so it’s important to
remember that keeping an eye on your competitors is an ongoing process—not something
you do once and then never again. Ultimately, you have to be at the top of your game
consistently if you want to increase your market share.
2. Confirmation bias is real
As humans, we have a tendency to jump to conclusions around our assumptions. This is
called confirmation bias. As you work through your analysis, it’s important to be aware of
your initial assumptions and to test them thoroughly rather than leaning on what you
“think” is true about your competitors. Let the data inform your decisions rather than letting
assumptions take the lead.
3. Data without action is useless
If you’re putting in the work to do a competitor analysis, be sure that you’re acting on
the findings rather than letting them gather virtual dust on your computer, buried in an
obscure file folder. Make a strategic plan around your findings and execute on the unique
angles and tactics that you’ve discovered during this process.
4. Working harder instead of smarter
With so many great resources available that simplify the data collection process around
competitive analysis today, putting together a top-notch, highly accurate comparison is
easier than ever before. Don’t reinvent the wheel and do things the hard way: make the
investment into tools that speed up the process and provide the important insights you
need to make informed, data-backed decisions about your business.
5. Starting without a direction
If you’re directionless while putting together your competitive analysis and have no
clear end objective, the work will be much, much harder. Before diving into research, define
your goal and what you hope to learn about your competition. What do you want to
accomplish? What do you want to build? It is your own business after all!
6. Not accounting for market timing
When looking at competitor data, be sure to study how companies have grown and
progressed over time rather than examining their approaches at a single fixed point.
Sometimes information about how your competitors have evolved their tactics can be
even more useful than knowing what they did in the early days (or what they’re doing right
now). Understanding past, current, and future industry trends will help you make better
decisions.
Competitive analysis: your business edge
Competitive intelligence is key to starting a business. By doing market competition
analysis on an ongoing basis, you can always be on top of your competition. You’ll be able to
break into new markets, launch new products, and keep tabs on your competitors’
customers—giving you a cutting edge approach to small business that keeps your business
or startup agile.
