How to Do a Competitive Analysis in Digital Marketing

Maintaining a competitive advantage over your rivals is a very efficient strategy for expanding your company. In order to uncover methods in which you can outperform your rivals and engage and influence customers, it is necessary to have an in-depth understanding of your competition.

Your approach for digital marketing should absolutely include conducting a digital competitive study. It assists you in comprehending the digital tactics of your rivals, which enables you to maximize your strengths and reduce your flaws in order to construct and expand your business. In addition, you do not need to hire pricey outside parties to assist you in doing it because everything can be done in-house if you have the knowledge to do so.

Let’s have a look at how you may conduct a competition analysis so that you can leverage the unique selling propositions (USPs) of your own company to achieve that all-important competitive edge. In this blog, we shall discuss the following:

• What exactly is a market analysis of competitors?

• The reasons why you should conduct a market analysis

• The components of a market study of competitors

• The various forms of competition analysis

• The various techniques used for competitor analysis

We have designed a competitive analysis tracker for you to download so that you can keep track of everything and transform your information into actionable insights. This will help you get off on the right foot.

In the context of digital marketing, what exactly is a competitive analysis?

In digital marketing, competitive analysis refers to a procedure that involves researching competitors in order to determine their strengths and flaws. For the purpose of gaining insights, it investigates the approaches that businesses take toward marketing, pricing, product creation, and distribution.

You will be able to develop digital tactics that will generate brand visibility, consumer engagement, and income, which is the most crucial of the three. This will help you stay on top of trends in your industry.

When it comes to digital marketing, why is it important to conduct a competitive analysis?

What exactly is the point of conducting a competitive analysis? As a matter of fact, the breadth of your competitive study can be modified according to the information that you seek. You are free to narrow or broaden the scope of your analysis as you see fit.

For instance, you might wish to concentrate on improving the performance of your website. You would do this by visiting the websites of your competitors and analyzing their content, user experience (UX), and lead generation tactics. What you discover can then assist you in the implementation of new CRO tactics.

The following are some of the many advantages that can be gained from carrying out an investigation:

Target the most effective digital strategies in your marketplace; Identify new customers and territories; Uncover market trends; See the potential for a new product or service; Establish a benchmark to measure your performance against; Identify market barriers and opportunities; Identify your value proposition and how it differs from competitors; Highlight areas where competitors are not delivering or have weaknesses; Identify where competitors are not delivering or have weaknesses; Target the most effective digital strategies in your marketplace.

What components make to an examination of the competition?

In the context of digital marketing, conducting a competitive analysis entails examining the many platforms utilized by each of one’s rivals in order to determine how well these platforms contribute to growth. In the end, it all comes down to benchmarking versus your other businesses.

Identify the various categories of competitors.

It’s not fair to judge each contender on the same criteria. Sort them into different groups according to the amount of competition they represent.

• Primary competitors are those that are in direct competition with you and offer a product or service that is comparable to the one that you provide to your customers; for example, Boohoo and Asos.

• Secondary: These companies offer a similar version of your product or service to a different clientele, for example, Target and Gucci both offer low-end and high-end versions of the same thing.

• Tertiary: These are brands that are related to you but do not compete with your product or service or audience. Some examples of tertiary brands include Patagonia and Red Bull.

If you break down your competitors in this way, you’ll be able to better understand how they connect to your company.

Create a profile of the clients that your competitors are targeting.

Learning about the people that patronize your competitors’ businesses can provide you with a wealth of information regarding their operations. You will gain a better understanding of the people they target as well as the digital channels that they employ to achieve their goals as a result of this.

Observing the kind of people who are drawn to the brand is the most effective method for gathering information about the company’s clientele. You could learn this by looking at their mission statement or the section of their website titled “About Us.”

• Messaging and interaction on social media platforms

• Blogs and freely available digital assets

• Webinars or podcasts

• User-generated content, such as customer reviews or testimonials

You may learn more about your competitors’ audiences by analyzing their goals, the content they provide, and the interactions they have with their followers. This will assist you in developing strategies that will set you apart from the other competitors.

Use the “4 Ps” of marketing to your advantage.

A comprehensive marketing mix is an essential component of any successful digital marketing plan. It would be beneficial for you to evaluate the marketing strategies used by your rivals in order to acquire insights into your own actions.

1) The Product – What exactly are they trying to sell? What aspects of their product or service are most appreciated by their patrons? What makes this product or service so popular among customers? What advantages does their product have over mine, both in terms of features and products?

2. Cost: What kind of pricing structure do they use? Is it a one-time payment or do you have to pay on a recurring basis? Why do you think this pricing point is so appealing?

3. Promotion: In what ways do they advertise their brand and the products and services they provide? Which digital outlets do they focus their promotional efforts on the most? What kinds of promotional strategies do they employ?

4. Location – In which areas do they conduct sales? Do they primarily conduct business via the internet, or do they also operate traditional stores or branches?

This procedure can provide you with a lot of knowledge, so you should concentrate on the topics that you have an interest in learning more about. In addition to the qualitative data, include any quantitative information that can be referred to later.

Find examples of optimal practices.

Your best competitors are successful for a reason; they have put their plans to the test across a variety of digital platforms over time and have made necessary adjustments. This indicates that they have produced best practices that can serve as a model for you to follow.

Take, for instance, the possibility that your rivals have found marketing success on TikTok. You may determine the presence of your competitors’ products and services by using competitive analytics; if the vast majority of them are utilizing it, you should probably give it some thought.

You may also observe that a lot of your rivals have advanced up the rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs) such as Google or Bing. This very certainly indicates that they are utilizing search engine optimization (SEO) in order to optimize their website for searches utilizing common keywords and phrases.

Make use of an analytical framework.

The manner in which you investigate your rivals should be chosen according to the information you seek.

If you want to find new possibilities or dangers in the market, for instance, you may utilize SWOT analysis once you have gathered all of the data in order to accomplish this goal. This will also assist you in determining your areas of excellence and areas for improvement.

Porter’s Five Forces is yet another framework that should be taken into consideration. This takes a look at the market dynamics that are at play inside an industry, such as the threat of new entrants and replacements, the negotiating power of substitutes, competitive rivalry, and the bargaining power of suppliers and new customers.

You might also make use of a growth share matrix that was designed by Boston Consulting Group. This matrix compares the items or services you offer to those offered by your competitors. In order to drive analysis, this is divided into four categories: “Star,” “Question mark,” “Cash cow,” and “Pet.” Each of these categories is based on growth and market share. The following video provides a demonstration of the framework by utilizing Coca-Cola as an example.

Prepare your data for analysis by organizing it.

Arrange in an orderly fashion any information on your competition that you have gathered. This will make it easier for you to look up any data points you need to in order to acquire insights for upcoming digital activities.

When you are obtaining data from a large number of rivals, this is of utmost importance because it will assist you in examining areas of similarity in order to locate chances. The range of prices, activities on social media, strategies for lead generation, content marketing campaigns, first-time visitor offers, and so on are all examples of criteria that should be analyzed.

Which different kinds of competitive analyses are there?

There are many different kinds of competitive analyses available, and the one you choose for your business should rely on its requirements. Each one will zero in on a specialized field that you wish to investigate and perfect in order to drive targets and key performance indicators (KPIs) like as leads, revenue, and brand recognition.

You can also evaluate email (for more information, check out our comprehensive guide to email marketing) or the user interface and user experience of a website. These are the primary sorts that concentrate on important digital marketing channels.

Analysis of competitors using PPC

Finding out the keywords or phrases your rivals are bidding on is one of the tasks involved in conducting a PPC competition study. The ultimate objective is to develop pay-per-click (PPC) ads that outperform those of your rivals and bring in more business.

You may accomplish this by researching the different kinds of advertisements that they run, as well as the networks and platforms on which they run them. They may be paying for pricey keywords or phrases that are focused on conversions. Or is the primary focus of their PPC on increasing brand awareness?

You may also look at their landing pages to examine the messaging and calls to action on those pages. Are they generating unique landing pages for each campaign, or are they depending on a small number of money pages? When you have this information, you will have a better picture of the goals and resources that your competition is working with.

Check out our case study of Airbnb’s digital strategy, in which we examine how they managed to strike a compromise between the requirements of their paid search campaign and those of the brand.

Analysing the competition in SEO

With this kind of study, you may learn what SEO keywords your competitors rank for and use those to better compete with them. This can assist you in understanding the area of concentration that they have, as well as in determining how to compete in the fight for keywords.

You might try some of the following strategies:

Find keyword gaps Compare backlinks and where they get them Look at tactics on how they rank for more keywords – for example, do they have a blog or resources section? Compare backlinks and where they get them Keyword gaps Find keyword gaps Compare backlinks and where they get them Keyword gaps

• Take a look at popular pages and their traffic.

An examination of competitors on social media

Any company may benefit greatly from utilizing social media as a potent tool for increasing consumer interaction and leads (especially since social commerce became more widespread). It is essential to be aware of the locations of your audience in order to successfully target them across different social platforms.

When you carry out a social media competition analysis, it will be easier for you to determine which social networks your rivals are using, as well as the amount of followers they have and the demographics they focus on.

You should also take a look at the frequency of their posts, the times at which they publish, and the kind of content that they share, such as links to videos and blogs. Additionally, look at the content themes or buckets that they have so that you can see the many subjects that they cover.

Interactions with customers, such as through comments, can also be illuminating, and engagement rates can show you which postings are more meaningful to the audience.

Tools for conducting analyses of competitors

There is a wide variety of software available to assist you in conducting competitor analysis. Your data gathering will consequently become easier, more accurate, and more productive as a result of this. The following are some examples of some of the most effective techniques that are particular to important areas:

PPC analysis

• SEMRush can perform a site audit, show competitor’s keywords, and a backlink analysis

• Spyfu researches your competitors’ most profitable keywords in PPC campaigns

• Google Ads Auctions Insight enables you to compare your performance with that of other companies that are bidding in the same auctions as you are. SEO analysis

• Ahrefs checks the top performing keywords of any website and provides an estimate of the traffic those keywords receive. SE Ranking displays paid and organic search performance and

Analyzing Keywords Similarweb is a tool that may provide statistics on web and channel traffic, find keyword trends, and provide engagement metrics.

An examination of social media

• Facebook ad library enables you to search for advertisements that are placed across Facebook, Instagram, and other Meta products.

• Sprout Social enables you to measure the growth of your follower base, as well as engagement, hashtag trends, conversions, and the effectiveness of paid content.

Develop Your Skills to Become a Proficient Digital Marketing Strategist

To increase brand recognition, new customer leads, and overall revenue, your company should put digital tactics front and center. You will gain a better understanding of your customer and brand story, refine your financial and team management skills, learn how to optimize your digital channels, and become a digital leader by taking the Digital Strategy course offered by DMI.