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Competitor analysis & benchmarking

Know your enemy! There are lots of tools for keeping tabs on them – we’ll show you the best tools and the best free tools!

Our Quick Guide to competitor analysis & benchmarking...

What is competitor analysis & benchmarking?

What is online competitor benchmarking?

 

Benchmarking, in the case of digital marketing, is best done as part of a larger framework for strategic planning (for example, using our RACE framework). Once all factors which affect the commercial performance of a company are identified, metrics can be defined for the key performance indicators (KPI’s) of the industry or marketplace – these measures or “benchmarks” are then used to develop new initiatives for the marketing team to enhance its overall competitive position. Remember in this instance we’re talking about digital marketing, in reality digital marketing is but one area for benchmarking yourself against the competition, it’s not new and has been done for a long time in benchmarking products, logistics and manufacturing processes.


Blog posts

Online competitor benchmarking
Danyl Bosomworth, September 16, 2010

Our guide to benchmarking competitors for effectivness in customer acquisition, conversion and retention In this guide, we take a look at the what, why, how and when of competitor benchmarking for digital marketing and provide a step-by-step guide showing the …..

Competitor analysis Read more
More advice

Competitor analysis & benchmarking success factors

Why benchmark?

The purpose is to gain a level of insight that allows you to evolve your digital marketing strategy based on competitor insight. It’s not that you should be dictated by what you learn about competitors, since being very reactive to that can be worse than doing nothing. Yet common sense tells us that knowledge is power – simply knowing how you compare, finding quick wins and defining your medium to long term strategy gives you more control and power.

How can it go wrong?

There are still pitfalls to be aware of, here are the five main ones:
  • Being unclear about what you are benchmarking and why – you need to have a purpose, why are your prepared to invest the time or expense, what is it that you want to improve
  • Failing to not know what tools and resources that are out there is probably the biggest block, there are more and more free, trial-based or paid (but cheap) services these days, this was not the case 3 years ago – there”€™s lots of choice so knowing what to use, and when, will save time and resources
  • Remembering that benchmarking should be an ongoing process, not a task that you do once per year
  • Thinking your online competitors are the same. For example when competing for traffic in Google, remember that publishers, blogs and affiliates are all competitors and you need a strategy to know how to work with or against each. As mentioned, it”€™s also worth looking beyond directs for “€œout-of-sector”€™ benchmarking if you want to be best in class
  • Not linking to action. As with all situation analysis, if a report sits on your virtual shelf, it was a waste of time. You need to prioritse actions through a SWOT and then review whether your actions are working through reviewing the KPIs through analytics.
Be careful not to get too worried about your competition, of course it”€™s important, yet not all of your answers will lie within your competitors – we think that looking outside of your market can be just as beneficial for driving ideas and innovation – a source of inspiration for asking new questions.

Tools and Software

Recommended compilation of benchmarking tools:

Related Statistics

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