You need to stand out from the crowd, get noticed by the right people at the right time, and show leads that you’re better than the competition. And with so many marketing channels up for grabs today, that competition can be incredibly fierce.
You’re competing for website traffic, ad placement, and leads. Even though competitor analysis can feel a little uncomfortable for some business owners, it’s a necessary component of any successful digital marketing plan.
After all, your competition is there to motivate you to improve your business, try harder to convert leads, and offer the best services you can. Plus, having other players in your space validates that there’s a thriving market for your auto repair services. And it means there are digital marketing methods out there that work. When our clients pinpoint these techniques and figure out which keywords to use, they create powerful action plans to grow their businesses.
“Our automotive repair clients always perk up when hearing about new competitors who are physically entering the market or are competing with them digitally,” says Allison Allen, Manager of Marketing Services at Company 119. “For example, we use a variety of tools to monitor when the competition bids on keyword terms that our clients also bid on, and use that information to optimize our paid search campaigns.”
Of course, spying on your competitors doesn’t guarantee you first place in the digital marketing game. Even though competitor analysis is only one piece of the puzzle, it can be one of the best tools to scale your business—if you use it right.
Fortunately, with the right tools at your disposal, you can spend less time and effort spying on your competitor and more time fine-tuning your marketing strategy. From keyword research to email marketing, here are the 10 best tools to spy on your competition’s advertising plan.
You’ve probably heard of SEMRush before—and for good reason. Its competitor analysis features give it a major advantage over other SEO tools. Even though it focuses on SEO analysis, it’s extremely comprehensive, so you can use it to track various aspects of your competitors’ SEO campaigns.
With SEMRush, you can plug in your competitors’ URLs to pull up their backlinks and monitor changes in their search engine rankings. You’ll also get a ton of data on your competitors, from their top organic keywords to their main competitors.
At the end of the day, SEMRush is invaluable for spying on your competitors’ SEO. And let’s not forget about the best part: SEMRush’s basic features are free (but you’ll need to create an account to use them). If you decide to pay for SEMRush, you’ll get access to user-friendly market research, social media marketing, and advertising tools that can help transform your digital marketing strategy.
If you’re a seasoned player in the digital marketing game, you’ve probably used Google Keyword Planner to research relevant keywords for your website and PPC campaigns. Sure, everyone uses it, but Google Keyword Planner is one of the best places for keyword research—and it’s one of the best tools to use to see what keywords your competitors are targeting.
If you already have a basic understanding of Google Keyword Planner, you can gain some incredibly useful insights into your competitors’ digital marketing strategy. Countless other keyword tools pull from Google Keyword Planner, so why not get your data straight from the source?
To get started, enter your top competitor’s URL into the “landing page” field. You’ll get information on new keyword ideas, keyword ad group ideas, and the average traffic for those keywords. Make sure to check out keyword ad groups—you can use this category to find some great long-tail keywords.
When you’re checking out your competitor’s keywords, remember that they might not be targeting every keyword intentionally. Even if a keyword was featured in a specific piece of content, your competitor might not be specifically targeting the keyword across their website. And if they’re not targeting those keywords, you’ll have the chance to swoop in, target them, and win in search engine rankings.
Like SEMRUsh, Ahrefs is an extremely versatile, useful tool for SEO analytics. Ahrefs can be used for all aspects of your competitor analysis. You can use it to check any URL’s top organic keywords and spy on how much traffic your competitors receive through those keywords. It also provides information on your competitors’ domain authority, referring domains, and new referring domains.
When you plug a URL into Ahrefs, you can easily check out a website’s highest-performing content based on its backlinks. Plus, you can see how many new links your competitors are getting daily. When you learn what sort of products or messaging works best for your competitors, you’ll be able to set achievable, data-driven goals for your own brand.
Unlike SEMRush, Ahrefs’ SEO tools are premium, so you’ll need to sign up for a membership to access these competitor analytics. Before dishing out your precious marketing dollars, you can try out a seven-day trial for $7.
MozBar is a browser extension from Moz that provides a surface-level view of site authority. It’s basically an SEO toolbar that you can access anytime you’re browsing the web, so you can conduct passive competitor research without lifting a finger.
MozBar uses Moz’s domain authority (DA) measurements to assign websites DA scores. Domain scores are based on a website’s likelihood to rank in search engines. The higher the DA score, the better the website’s search engine rankings.
When you add MozBar to your browser, you’ll be able to quickly determine a site’s search potential at a glance. Instead of wasting your time plugging competitors’ URLs into different DA checkers, MozBar does all the hard work for you. The tool also features an on-page highlighter, so you can find and highlight keywords and differentiate links by different types.
As a bonus, when the extension is enabled, you’ll be able to see how competing sites compare in specific Google queries, like “tire services Seattle” or “brake repair near me.”
Similarweb is one of the most comprehensive tools you can use for content marketing and SEO. It helps you dig deep into your competitors’ content and see where their traffic is coming from.
We all know that traffic analysis is a critical analytic for getting a good idea of your competitors’ web performance. With a comprehensive view of your competitors’ digital traffic, you can gain the data and insights you need to stand out from the crowd and win at digital marketing.
You can use Similarweb to spy on their monthly traffic, figure out which channels draw the most visitors, and where those visitors are coming from. For example, you can check out your competitors’ referral traffic and where their website sends its visitors.
Wondering what type of content to post on your blog? Check out your competitors’ blogs without refreshing their page every day with Feedly.
Feedly stores and organizes content as soon as it’s published. With Feedly, you can see an overview of the hot topics covered by your competitors—all on one page. Feedly tracks content across the entire web, from news sites and blogs to Twitter and newsletters, so you’ll never miss out on the latest updates in the auto repair industry.
So, how exactly does Feedly work? You train your AI research assistant, Leo, to read your feeds and prioritize relevant topics that matter the most to you. Looking for the latest trends in auto repair? Teach Leo to prioritize key industry trends. Wondering what your competitors are posting about? Use Leo to stay up-to-date on your competitors’ latest blogs and Twitter posts. Yes, it really is that easy.
Ready to turn up the heat on your content marketing campaign? BuzzSumo is going to be your greatest ally. With BuzzSumo, you can check out the top-performing content for relevant topics for your business and specific competitors.
BuzzSumo looks at the engagement rates for a piece of content, as well as its total shares across the web, to give you a comprehensive view of what types of content work and what types don’t. This tool shows you who’s winning in terms of industry content, and it helps you pinpoint hot topics for your own content.
Whether you’re searching for local leaders in the auto repair industry or looking to take your content up a few notches, BuzzSumo can help.
If you’re searching for easy ways to upgrade your email marketing campaign, Owletter is the answer. That’s right—you can say goodbye to the days of creating dummy accounts to spy on your competitor’s email listing.
Owletter automatically collects emails from your competitors and organizes them into a user-friendly dashboard. When you use Owletter to track your auto repair competitors’ email campaigns, you won’t risk losing another email or filling up your inbox with newsletters from the competition. Instead, you’ll have the opportunity to learn more about your competitor’s email behavior (and finetune your email campaign as needed).
With Owletter analytics, you can gain valuable insights into your competitors’ email frequency, the type of emails they send to customers, and what type of CTAs work for them. This way, you can pick up on your competitors’ email trends, write better emails, and gain that competitive edge you’ve been looking for.
Hootsuite is one of the best tools—if not the best tool—for tracking your competitor’s social media analytics. In one place, you can monitor everything from post engagement to mentions to see how customers interact with your competitors across social media. Once you set up your searches, Hootsuite will continually update your networks in your streams.
You can use Hootsuite to track analytics across 35+ social media networks, which means you can set up multiple social media streams and monitor them from your dashboard.
To use Hootsuite for competitor analysis, all you need to do is figure out who your competitors are (more on that later) and set up streams in Hootsuite to follow their social media activity. The best part? You can also track specific keywords and hashtags.
We’ve gone over ways to spy on your competitors’ email campaigns, social media marketing, and SEO…but what about their PPC campaigns? iSpionage analyzes various aspects of your competitors’ PPC campaigns—from how many keywords their company is targeting on AdWords to their projected monthly budget.
With iSpionage, you can spy on your competitors’ target PPC keywords, and you can see who else competes for particular PPC keywords for a particular topic. If you’re targeting “auto repair in Seattle,” for example, you can use iSpionage to figure out exactly who you’re competing with. iSpionage also provides access to over seven years worth of PPC and SEO keywords for Google, Bing, and Yahoo, including ad copy variations, so you can track trends across your local auto repair industry.
Whether you’re considering PPC or looking for ways to ignite your PPC campaign, iSpionage is essential. And if you’re just getting started, it can help you set more realistic expectations for ad spending, which can make all the difference in your marketing budget.
If you want to spy on the competition, you need to know who you should be spying on. Sounds simple, right? You probably know some of your local auto repair companies, but you might be surprised at how many companies offer auto repair services in your service area. Chances are, you only know about half of the companies that can be considered competitors.
So, how do you figure out your competition? There are a few different strategies you can try, including:
Competitor research can give you countless insights into your competitors’ advertising strategy, but it’s not going to make any difference in your bottom line unless you take action. Don’t fixate on the data. Instead, turn your insights into an action plan to grow your business.
Maybe you’ve identified some new keywords to target in your landing pages to beat your competitors in Google search engine rankings. Maybe you haven’t been publishing content or sending emails as often as you should based on your competitors’ behavior.
Either way, the primary motive behind competitor analysis is upgrading your own advertising strategy. Ultimately, the more information you gain from your competitors, the more you’ll be able to improve your own digital marketing campaign. It’s only then that you’ll be able to stand out from the crowd and get noticed by the right people.
Don’t get discouraged by the competition, no matter how competitive your local auto repair market is. It takes grit and bravery to take the hard road and step out in front of the competition—but you have the best tools for the job.
With competitor analysis, you can transform your digital marketing strategy with valuable, actionable insights into your competition’s advertising plan. As you start shining and polishing your strategy, reach out to our team if you have any questions. We’re here to help you fuel your business growth with an unrivaled advertising campaign.
