In this article we will find out why it is important to analyze competitors and what are the 5 steps to analyze them.

Why is it important to analyze competitors?

Studying competitors, their offerings, product range and communication is most important in several aspects.

• Drawing inspiration

By analyzing and spying on competitors you can find out what they leverage, what works, and get ideas you may not have thought of.

• Differentiate yourself

You can also see where others are lacking and discover “supply gaps.” You can also create ads that stand out from the communication used by most brands.

STEP 1: Create a list

Start with “ideal” Great competitors but with similar products and positioning to yours. For example, if you have a small clothing ecommerce, you might start with Asos or Zalando.

Next to each competitor jot down any ideas that will come to you during the analysis.

Remember: If competitors, especially the big ones, are doing certain things or making certain marketing decisions, they are doing so because they are working. So always try to assume that your ideal competitors are the ones to take inspiration from.

STEP 2: SimilarWeb

In the second step we have to use a tool, fortunately free, which is very useful and with which we can come up with so many ideas: SimilarWeb.

In the search bar you can enter the domain of your competitors and get lots of useful information for your analysis.

If, for example, we enter Zalando(www.zalando.it) and press enter, it will come up with lots of info regarding their ranking and interesting metrics.

We can also discover so much information regarding their merketing strategy, especially in the traffic sources screen. Their visitors for example come from direct searches and search campaigns.

This means that there is a lot of awarness about the brand and that there is a lot of search both for their brand and for the keywords on which they base their advertising strategy.

The data may change over time, and by the time you read this article there may be different metrics than those shown above.

If a company like Zalando is structuring their campaigns on Google searches and Social it means that they have already tested and realized that their revenue benefits. It might be useful to copy their strategy if we are an apparel ecommerce.

Although companies may be giants, with paid advertising you can compete with them. Don’t be demoralized, there is an opportunity to make yourself known even if you don’t have the budget of a large company available.

STEP 3: Ubersuggest and SemRush.

Other key tools to be used during competitor analysis are Ubersuggest and SemRush.

With these tools you can take a lot of insights and understand what keywords they have chosen, what their active ads are, etc.

We can see organic, paid traffic, Authority Score.

For each keyword you can see how much search volume there is each month, how much it costs to click on that keyword, and how much traffic it generates. If you find some interesting ones mark them.

You can also see other competitors competing for the same keywords on Google Ads.

You can also see the text ads they use. Take a lot of cues from what comes out of the competitor analysis.

In the 14-day free trial version you can use all the features and discover a treasure trove of information about your competitors.

STEP 4: Facebook Ads Library

In case you have discovered on Similar Web that your competitors are investing in social, analyze them through Facebook’sAd Library.

This way you will be able to see all their advertisements that are active right now and running on both Facebook and Instagram.

You can do this analysis for both your ideal competitors, real competitors, and local competitors. All this is useful to you whether you want to do retargeting campaigns on Facebook or want to expand your advertising strategy on Facebook as well.

You can tell what kind of language they use, whether they focus on photos, videos, a certain type of product, whether they focus on shipping, product quality, emotional aspects, etcc.

STEP 5: Google search

Research the keywords your competitors rank on, what types of ads they run, and what aspects they leverage.

Differentiate! If you cannot compete with them on some aspects, try to differentiate yourself.

If, for example, we search for “buy shoes online” we see what kind of ads come out and what competitors appear. If you want, you can click on each result and see what brands are targeting.

BONUS

One Chrome application that works wonders is Wappalizer,” which allows you to see all the plugins your competitor uses. For example, if the competitor has a Facebook Pixel, it means that they advertise on Facebook or otherwise collect customer data to identify them on Facebook.

If you are an SME or freelancer, you can use a simplified procedure:

You can google what a normal person who needs you would google. For example, “Dietitian Milan.”

Mark on a sheet the best competitors, best ads, and best USPs or value offers. If there is a supply gap, don’t think twice and jump in.