How to conduct competitor analysis in digital marketing? Part 2

A large number of subscribers is not always an advantage. Open and scroll through the list of competitor’s subscribers – a large number of empty or inactive profiles indicates an audience cheat. Also, evaluate the ratio of the number of subscribers and the reach of posts (the number of views). If the coverage is very small, then this competitor is unlikely to be a serious contender in social networks.

We study contextual advertising

Analysis of the context of competitors will help in creating more effective advertisements. We look at what ads a competitor is using and why they are performing.

In contextual advertising of competitors, we are interested in:

• • list of keywords;

• • ad content;

• • calls to action.

When analyzing competitor emails, we examine several parameters

Collection of contacts

Go to your competitors’ websites and see how they sign up for your newsletter. The mechanics can be different: static subscription forms, pop-ups, a gift in exchange for an email (checklist, book, video instruction).

Content of subscription forms

Look at how a competitor requests an address or offers a subscription: talks about the benefits, offers a benefit, or uses only a call to action. Pay attention to the design and arrangement of forms, and the number of fields.

Email sending schedule

Subscribe to competitors’ newsletters. We advise you to do this at the very beginning of the competitive analysis. While you explore other areas, you will accumulate a sufficient number of letters for evaluation.

Determine the distribution schedule

To do this, enter the address of the mailing sender in the search line of the mailbox, and the mailer will sort all letters by date.

Content Marketing

First of all, look at what competitors write about on their blogs (if there is one). Evaluate the quality of publications, and find the materials that received the most reactions (views, reposts, comments). Including analysing blogs on third-party sites.

Follow the incoming links and mark the sites where competitors post their publications. Mark where the publications showed greater efficiency in terms of views, and reposts. See what content your competitors are posting.

What to do with the collected information

As a result of the analysis, you will have:

• • several tables with the characteristics of competitors;

• • semantic core of competing sites;

• • context semantics of competitors;

• • examples of posts in social networks and letters from the mailing list.

Do a thorough job on all tables. Figure out which characteristics your business is stronger in and which are weaker. Determine what parameters you need to work on, and what indicators to strive for. This will help you create an effective promotion strategy and select areas that require special attention.

Compare the semantic core of competitor sites with the semantics of your own site. Find queries that you have not used before and expand your semantic core with them. Mark for yourself the queries for which the site ranks first. Expand the semantics of the context by supplementing it with phrases from these competitors. Improve ad content.

Adjust your email strategy. See what can be improved in the design and content of emails. Test approaches that work well for competitors. In order not to refer to the results of the analysis each time and not to search for the necessary information, create a summary document. Write in it everything that you have to do, that needs to be corrected or changed.