3 Ways to Monitor Your Competitor’s Marketing Strategy

By  //  June 2, 2021

Keeping up with the latest marketing trends can be challenging enough. But you’ll also need to keep up with (and even outpace) your competitors if you want to grow your business. 

You might not currently have much insight into how your competitors are succeeding with their strategy. However, there are ways to find out what they’re doing behind the scenes.

Then, you can use this information to influence your own strategy and rise to the top. Here are just a few ways you can gain insight into the marketing tactics your competitors are using.

Find Their Target Keywords

Keywords are always a great place to start. If you’re struggling to rank in search engine results and your organic traffic is dwindling, learning more about a competitor’s keyword strategy can provide you with some valuable data.

There are a number of free tools you can use to figure out the keywords your competitors are targeting. A web grader will allow you to type in any domain and learn more about its keyword rankings in just seconds.

These tools can also provide data like search volume and ranking position, allowing you to discover whether there might be some room to outrank your competition on those keywords. Alternatively, you might also discover some gaps in their keyword strategy that provide you with an “in.” With this information, you can conduct additional keyword research and optimize your site accordingly.

View Their Backlink Profile

Backlinks are another important aspect of digital marketing. When a website has a significant number of authoritative backlinks, that site’s reputation and rankings will typically improve.

Developing a link-building strategy can allow your site to obtain some high-quality backlinks from domains that Google already finds worthy. While there’s work to be done here on your own, it won’t hurt to analyze a competitor’s backlink profile to boost your rankings and neutralize their attempts to outperform your business online.

Once you figure out which referring domains have given your competitors a backlink, you can assess whether they might do the same for your business. You could offer to write a guest post for them or see whether they publish industry round-ups, for example. Although you’ll want to obtain backlinks from other sources, as well, knowing more about another business’s backlink profile can help you make the most of your strategy.

Follow Their Digital Ads

Digital ads can help a business reach new customers. But if you haven’t seen success with your own PPC or display ads — or you simply want to know what others in your industry are doing with their ad spend — it may be worth keeping track of competitor advertisements online.

If you’ve looked up a competitor and then start to see their ads everywhere, there’s a good chance they’ve made room in their advertising budget for remarketing. Seeing a competitor’s ads pop up on social media or for specific keyword bids in Google Ads can also provide you with some insight into what’s working for them.

You might even learn something from analyzing their ad copy. There are a few tools that can allow you to analyze competitor ads, as well. And if a competitor is advertising on your brand name, you’ll want to take action to ensure they can’t benefit from your business.

Developing an effective marketing strategy involves more than competitive analysis. However, you should stay up-to-date on what others in your sector are doing to market themselves online. With these three tips in mind, you’ll have a better idea of how to come out on top.