Several times a year, we’re asked by clients to do a more in-depth audit of their marketing practices. Part of this involves taking a look at competitor practices. Why? Because understanding your competitors’ marketing strategies is crucial for gaining valuable insights to refine your own approach and identify opportunities for growth. To give an example, we’ve done a few of these analyses in the past couple of months (for different clients) where we found the competitors doing really clever things to drive traffic and awareness. Those kinds of insights are invaluable!

Below, we’ll dive pretty deeply into several of the key areas we recommend focusing on. You can also download our free 27-page guide (at the bottom of the page) for more details as well.

 

Website and SEO Analysis

Your competitors’ websites are often the first point of contact for potential customers. And it’s pretty easy to analyze a site. Start by examining these critical aspects:

• • Page Speed: Use tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights to assess how quickly their pages load. A fast-loading site can give them an edge in user experience and search rankings
  • Navigation: Evaluate the ease of use and intuitiveness of their site structure. Is it user-centric? Does it overwhelm visitors with too many options? Generally navigation should be no more than 15 percent of the screen in desktop.
  • Mobile Experience: With mobile traffic dominating, ensure you view their site on various devices. How well does it adapt? Is the checkout process smooth on mobile if it’s an e-commerce site?
  • Personalization: Sign in to their site if possible. Do they customize the experience based on your preferences or location? This can significantly impact user engagement.
  • Internal Search: Test their site’s search functionality. Does it offer autocomplete suggestions? How well does it handle misspellings or inexact queries?
  • Visual Design: Assess the overall aesthetics and layout. Are pages cluttered or clean? The visual appeal can greatly influence user perception.

To dig deeper into SEO performance, leverage tools like SEMrush, Similarweb, or Moz. These platforms can reveal:

• • Organic search traffic volume
  • Top-ranking keywords
  • Backlink volume and referral sites
  • Competitor comparisons

One thing: Make note of specific things the company does, such as naming URLs, the titles of pages, headlines used and other key factors that can make a difference (at least on-page) for how well that company ranks. By analyzing these factors, you can identify gaps in your own SEO strategy and areas where you might be able to outperform these competitors.

 

Email Marketing Analysis

Email is also a pretty easy place to analyze competitors’ marketing. A few things you can do here:

• • Sign up for their newsletters and promotional emails.
  • Pay attention to personalization tactics. Do they use your name or other personal details?
  • Note the frequency of emails. Are they overwhelming subscribers or not engaging enough?
  • Analyze send times. Is there a pattern to when they dispatch emails?
  • Examine subject lines and sender names for effectiveness.
  • Evaluate the email body for clarity, scan-ability, and compelling calls-to-action.
  • Check how their emails render on both desktop and mobile devices.

Finally, take a look to see if the company has set up particular email automations. If so, how many emails are in a particular series? What’s the call to action? The goal is to learn from what companies do well as well as avoid their mistakes in your own email campaigns.

 

Advertising Analysis

To gain insights into your competitors’ advertising strategies, we suggest turning again to competitive intelligence tools like SEMrush or Similarweb. These platforms can provide valuable data on:

• • Paid search keywords
  • Estimated ad spend
  • Display ad creatives
  • Landing page effectiveness

When analyzing paid search, look for:

• • Branded keyword usage
  • Non-branded keyword coverage
  • Ad relevance to search queries
  • Landing page experience post-click

For display advertising, visit your competitors’ websites and perform relevant Google searches. This can trigger their remarketing campaigns, giving you a firsthand look at their ad creatives and targeting strategies. Also, you can use free tools such as adbeat.com (just create a free account). Or, SEMrush, has a great tool called Ad Clarity.[1]

Don’t forget to examine their presence on social media advertising platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Note which platforms they’re most active on and the types of ads they’re running. Questions to ask:

• • If you visit a competitor’s website, do you get retargeted in social?
  • If you do a search for something related to your industry, does your competitor run ads somewhere else based on knowing what you searched for?

 

Social Media Analysis

The great part about social media is that company profiles and posts are public. And those can offer a wealth of publicly available information about your competitors’ marketing efforts. Here, we would recommend focusing on these key areas:

• • Follower counts and growth rates across platforms
  • Engagement levels (likes, comments, shares) on posts
  • Posting frequency and timing
  • Content types (images, videos, live streams, stories)
  • Use of hashtags and user-generated content campaigns
  • Interaction with followers (response times, tone)
  • For each major platform, consider these specific elements:
    • Facebook: Use of Facebook Live, Stories, and paid post boosting.
    • Instagram: Influencer partnerships, visual branding, and campaign hashtags.
    • LinkedIn: Thought leadership content and adherence to the 80-20 rule (80% valuable content, 20% promotional).
    • Twitter: Engagement during live events and customer service interactions.
    • TikTok: First, does it have an account? What’s the engagement and reach?

By thoroughly analyzing these aspects, you can identify successful strategies to adapt for your own social media marketing.

Content Analysis

Similar to social media, content is perhaps one of the most visible areas when it comes to your competitors’ marketing. What do you look at? We’d suggest the following:

• • Assess the variety of content types (blog posts, videos, infographics, podcasts, etc.)
  • Evaluate content quality and depth
  • Look for consistent themes or series
  • Take note of how often competitors are producing new content

One thing we also always take a look at is the content approach. For example, there are 6 content approaches that are generally used in marketing, what’s known as the STEPPS framework:

• • Social currency: Does it make readers feel insider or in-the-know?
  • Triggers: Does it create associations with everyday things?
  • Emotion: Does the content evoke strong feelings? In particular, love, hate, ambition, desire, anxiety?
  • Practical value: Does the content offer useful tips or solve problems?
  • Public: Does it showcase customers using products? Or feature testimonials, case studies or other social proof?
  • Stories: Does the company use personal stories or other stories to convey messages?

Other content analysis tips include:

• • Checking for content distribution across various channels
  • Examining how they optimize content for search engines
  • Looking for interactive elements or user-generated content initiatives

 

Conclusion

Trust us, it’s worth doing on your own if you can. But if analyzing your competitors’ marketing seems like a burden that you’d rather push to experts like us, don’t hesitate to contact us for a free consultation. We can help you with an analysis that looks at competitors’ websites, SEO tactics, email campaigns, advertising efforts, social media presence, and content strategy, and more.

[1] This is an additional charge per month.