To spy on your competitors, you don’t have to pretend to be James Bond. The digital world is transparent enough to find out about your competitors’ marketing strategies, the keywords they use, how they do it, and which of their pages perform the best.
And we’re going to tell you how to do it.
Here, we present 6 effective tactics that will give you insight into competitor ads, SEO tactics, and content strategies, along with digital tools you can use to get data.
#1: Spy on Competitors’ SEO
How to spy on your competitors’ SEO? The first step is to identify your organic rivals, and SE Ranking’s competitor search tool can help you with this.
The software will show you almost everything about other players’ SEO techniques, starting with the domain metrics and organic traffic of the website, to the keywords that bring it the most traffic and its organic competitors.
After you get a list of your SEO competitors, you will be able to see the main organic keywords they rank for as well as the pages that get them the most organic traffic.
To access all the graphs, go to Competitive Research > Overview or break down the data by Organic and Paid in the menu on your left.
To get a list of your main organic competitors, go to Organic traffic research > Competitors.
To check out competitors’ keywords, navigate to Organic traffic research > Competitors.
Why do this?
You can use the data from keyword and website traffic spying to adjust your SEO strategy. Try new keywords, for example, if you’re in the exact same niche as the competitors.
You can try positioning your brand in a different way, identify new customer pains, etc.
Examine which pages are driving the most traffic for your competitors and incorporate them into your content strategy.
By seeing a list of the top organic competitors of your competitor, you can also research their SEO tactics, which will give you even more knowledge about the niche and its main players.
#2: Spy on Competitors’ PPC Ads
Spy on competitors’ ads using Google Ads or SE Ranking’s Competitive Research Tool we mentioned earlier.
If you choose to use Google Ads, go straight to the Auction Insights tool. It will help you only if you’re currently running a campaign.
Compare the performance of your PPC ads with those of other websites taking part in the same auctions.
The Competitive Tool by SE Ranking will show you:
- The paid keywords of the competitor
- Ranking changes
- Ads history
- Paid competitors
- Top pages in paid search, and more.
To access the graphs with data, go to Competitive Research > Paid traffic research.
Why do this?
By researching PPC campaigns of your competitors, you can find out:
- Which websites are using PPC
- What keywords they use
- What landings they send traffic to (they may be hidden from the main website)
- What the CPC (cost per click) is for those keywords
- Whether your budget is sufficient to run a successful PPC campaign
As a result, you can understand what your budget is, what kind of landings to try out, and what queries to optimize those landings for.
#3: Research Competitors’ Social Media Accounts
Social media is one of the most powerful influence channels nowadays.
As of January 2021, 4.2 billion people were using social media, according to Statista. That’s over half the world’s population.
You can use social media to boost brand awareness and build trust with the audience. Plus, you can spy on the competition, which makes this approach even better.
First of all, you can track their ads (if there are any) in the Facebook Ads Library. Choose “All Ads” to ensure you get the most relevant results.
Also, consider sending your competitors a message to see if they use chatbots.
Why do this?
You can join the same social media channels your competition uses, improve your visuals and content, and adjust the tone to become more appealing to the target audience.
Also, by following other brands on social media, you can spy on competitors’ ads.
Facebook (now Meta) Ads is a powerful tool for gaining followers and sales, seeing whether the competition runs campaigns and how they do it, and it may provide insights into what you should try to improve.
#4: Look into Competitors’ Content Strategy
Continuing on the topic of social media, you can easily learn about the content strategy of other ‘racers’.
See the most popular posts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other channels they are using. Make sure they are official accounts.
Usually, you can find them on the official website(s) of your competitor(s).
Analyze these posts, and you will understand what types of content work best for your target audience, how often to post to keep people interested, how to engage with the users, etc.
Pay special attention to the accounts that have not only a large follower base but also a significant number of interactions with their content.
Followers can be created out of thin air, but how active they are is another story.
By enhancing this approach to include the blog of the company, you can not only spy on competitors’ keywords but see the posting frequency and publications that get the most social media shares and comments (if such features are available).
Plus, you can identify the pages that get the most backlinks to figure out what type of content is popular with your target audience.
Why do this?
Social media strategies are usually clear if you do an easy analysis. See what kind of content they post and which posts, visuals, and calls to action work best.
And consider changes to your techniques if you have any.
Make sure you don’t copy the content, though. It’s plagiarism and will only hinder your brand’s authority.
#5: Get Insights from Competitors’ Email Marketing Strategies
You don’t even need special digital tools to get insights from a competitor’s email marketing strategy.
Simply sign up for their newsletter and track emails for a couple of months. During that time, you’ll be able to see and analyze:
- Their email marketing behavior
- The frequency of sent emails
- CTA button text and design
- The design of the letters
- The most frequent dates and times emails are sent
- Subject line hooks, etc.
Look at how the design of the email matches the brand colors and fonts. See how your competitors encourage their readers to click on CTA buttons.
And keep in mind that you can find both excellent choices and rough mistakes like a giant annoying repetitive button in every email or a clickbait subject line in every message.
Why do this?
Email marketing is one of the most long-lasting forms of digital marketing. Forbes says it’s still one of the most powerful tools you can use.
If you still don’t use it, you can take a competitor’s idea to use as a template, then polish it and launch it.
And if you already use it, it’s still a good idea to see how others do it and then improve your own tactics, converting more readers into leads and leads into customers.
#6: Spy on Competitors’ Brand Mentions
We’ve established that you can spy on competitors’ keywords. But what if you could track their anchors as well? Particularly the brand name.
You could find out what websites mention the company.
Meet Google Alerts. It is an easy tool that you can set to track certain keywords on the web. Whenever a new mention appears, you’ll get an email notification.
We can’t promise that all of them will be high-quality and from websites you can get backlinks on. However, they aren’t your only opportunities:
- See what the competitor is launching soon (a webinar, a course, a discount, etc.)
- Find social media influencers working with the competitor
- See what other people have to say about them, etc.
If you want to try an alternative to Google Alerts, consider Brand24. Proficient users say that Google may miss some mentions, so using a couple of tools at once won’t hurt.
Why do this?
This will help you find out where you can get backlinks from. Some of the competitors’ pages may be broken.
Some TOP articles may have a place for another great company on the list. Some mentions aren’t as relevant as your content may be.
So, see this approach as an opportunity to find new sources to get backlinks from.
Summary
These 6 techniques should help you track competitor ads, the keywords competitors use, and their best performing landings.
You can do it with digital tools by Google, SE Ranking, and other developers.
Learn them and use them wisely to make sure you have regular valuable insights that will help you improve your own tactics.
Track their SEO strategies, PPC ads, and brand mentions. Also, don’t forget to peek into their social media and email campaigns by following their accounts and signing up for newsletters.
Keep in mind, though, that this transparency encompasses your business as well. So, be ready for other players in the game to look into your strategies.
After all, this is a fair race where everyone is just trying to improve their tactics. Remember this when making adjustments to your marketing campaign.
Ella Marcotte
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