Competitive Analysis: Understanding Competitors, Optimizing Strategies & Strengthening Market Position

Welcome back to our blog series “5 tips on how your own online marketing strategy can stay relevant even in times of automation”! In this part, we’re covering a topic that is often underestimated, but essential: competitor analysis.

Why is it so important to keep a close eye on the competition? Which tools and methods help identify relevant competitors? And above all: How can strategic advantages be derived from these insights? That’s exactly what we’ll look at in this post.

If you missed the previous parts of our series, feel free to take a look at them – there we discuss, among other things, why clear company goals are essential, how to set up your online marketing channels in the best possible way, and why contextual advertising is often underestimated.

Competitor Analysis - What is the competition doing?

Competition is known to keep business lively. What is usually a blessing for end consumers has already brought many a company to its knees, because its own product suddenly was no longer relevant, and customers stayed away as a result. That’s why it is essential to never lose sight of your own competitors and regularly keep an eye out for new, up-and-coming companies. This is where a so-called competitor analysis comes in.

First, it is important to identify your own competitors. There are many ways to do this. If you already use Google Ads, you can easily access the auction data in your campaigns and see which companies are actively bidding in the auctions, and how aggressively they do so. The metrics top of page rate and absolute top of page rate help us here by showing how often we appear in the auctions either in the top three results, or even at the very top. If we take a closer look, we can even tell whether we may be bidding too much in the auctions and artificially driving prices up.

Other ways to understand the competition’s approach

Anyone interested in what kind of advertising the competition is running, and which images and texts they use, should take a look at the ad libraries of all major advertising platforms. There we can easily and free of charge see exactly which ads were served by other companies. Examples include the Google Ads Transparency Center and the Meta Ads Library. There you can also find other information, such as the broad target audience, estimated budgets, and targeting options, although not in detail. Other platforms such as LinkedIn or TikTok also have such libraries, which are enormously helpful for competitor analysis.

Other options include external tools (e.g., Semrush, Similarweb, Ahrefs), generative AI tools (Google Gemini, ChatGPT), or simply a classic Google search. This allows us, beyond Google Ads, to see who might be showing up in auctions alongside us, or which companies are ranking organically for relevant search queries or showing up in some other form. This also makes it relatively easy to identify the competition’s content and use it for our analysis.

Once the competitors have been identified, we can start with the actual competitor analysis and gain a better overview of the competitive environment we operate in. Topics we should take a closer look at include:

• Website - What does the site look like? Is it a one-pager, or does it have a more complex design? Is the navigation simple, or somewhat more nested? How much information does it provide? What kind of language is used? How easy is it for a user to convert?

• Marketing strategy - What are the main goals? What actions should potential users take on the website (appointment requests, demos, download of information materials, product purchases, etc.)?

• Online marketing activities - Which channels are being used, and which ad formats are employed?

• Social media presence - Which topics are being covered? What works well, what doesn’t (engagement)? Where are there still gaps for our own placement?

• Pricing and offer structure - Are there frequent discounts or other promotions? Does the quality justify the prices, or is the focus more on low-cost products?

• Customer reviews and feedback - What do customers say about this competitor? What do they like, and what do they criticize?

Summarizing and keeping an overview

For a better overview, we can also summarize the insights we’ve gained in a classic SWOT analysis and thus visualize the current situation. This helps us better understand the status quo, highlight our own strengths more effectively, and identify potential gaps. In addition, it can also be worthwhile not only to compare competitors against your own company, but also against each other as part of the competitor analysis. This may help us identify similarities and overlaps that we should focus on in particular.

These analyses help us gain a better understanding of our own USPs. In addition, we can discover new opportunities and address segments or products that have so far received little to no attention. Based on this, we optimize our marketing strategy and, in some cases, can even predict new trends.

If we discover significant differences in pricing compared to our competitors, it becomes easier for us to justify our own prices. Perhaps our products are more expensive than the competition’s, but they are also more robust and durable. We can communicate that effectively as well.

We learn from customer feedback about the weaknesses and mistakes of our competitors and, in the best case, can profit from it. Through a precisely targeted approach that addresses the exact problems and concerns of the target audience, we gain a competitive advantage and directly ensure better customer satisfaction and loyalty from the very beginning.

By implementing the resulting measures, in the best case we not only save a lot of money and countless nerves, but also free up time for the truly important things: providing customers and employees in the company with the best possible experience.

Thank you for your attention! Hopefully you found it insightful and were able to take something away from it! In the fifth and final part of our mini-series, we will take a closer look at the topic of optimizing our own website. This follows our previous post on Contextual Advertising.

Did we forget something important, or do you still have questions about the topic? Then feel free to write to us in the comments!

If you want to get in touch with us directly, feel free to check out our contact form. We’ll help you better understand your competitive situation and benefit from it, so you can get the maximum out of your online marketing strategy - simple and without obligation!