Competitive analysis is a crucial part of a successful SEM strategy. Below are 12 tools that can help you gain insights on your competitors SEM efforts.
Adbeat provides sets of dashboards and reports for competitive analysis with focus on contextual advertising.
Features: www.adbeat.com
Highlights:
- Covers Google Display Network, MSN Content Network, Doubleclick, Adsonar, Pulse360 and 20+ more networks
- Provides dashboards on competing advertisers with trend lines, ad network activity, ad type breakdown, and the list of top publishers
- Provides an ability to see image, text, flash, and text-image creatives for an advertiser
Pricing: From $99/month. 30 day money back guarantee. Pricing details.
www.adgooroo.com
AdGooroo SEM Insight offers visibility into the day-to-day paid search landscape, including data on top competitors’ keywords, spend, cost-per-clicks, clickthrough rates, ad copy, landing pages, product listing ads, and more
Highlights:
- Helps estimate competitors’ budgets, traffic volume and clickthrough rates
- Provides view of competitors’ landing pages
- Provides an ability to identify competitors’ keywords
Pricing: Contact to request demo and pricing details
Bing Ads Campaign Planner
Campaign Planner provides insights into industry benchmarks and competitors based on data collected from Yahoo and Bing.
Highlights:
- Shows industry benchmarks and competitors
- Provides an ability to review competitors’ ad coverage
- Provides data on competitors’ average ad position
Pricing: Free
Google AdWords Auction Insights Report
Auction Insights report provides an ability to compare your performance with other advertisers who participating in the same auctions that you are.
Features: Details in this article
Highlights:
- Provides a list of competitors participating in the same auction
- Shows data on impression share, average ad position, and overlap rate for you and your competitors
- Provides an ability to segment reporting data by device type and time
Pricing: Free
Google AdWords Keyword Planner
adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner
While Keyword Planner is mainly focused on finding keyword ideas for new campaigns, this tool also provides an ability to estimate completion level and average cost-per-clicks for selected keywords.
Features: Details in this blog post
Highlights:
- Provides data on competition level and average cost-per-clicks for keywords
- Provides an ability to estimate traffic volume based on your keyword plan
Pricing: Free
Google AdWords Ad Preview and Diagnosis Tool
adwords.google.com/d/AdPreview
While Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool is mainly focused on checking the status of your own ads, it provides an ability to analyze ads of your competitors in different geographical locations.
Features: Details in this article.
Highlights:
- Shows your competitors’ ads triggered by particular keywords in specified geographical locations
- Provides an ability to see your ad position compared to competitors
Pricing: Free
Google Analytics – Benchmarking reports
www.google.com/analytics – Reporting Audience Benchmarking
Benchmarking reports allow you compare your performance with aggregated industry data from other companies. Using different segments (for example, “Paid Traffic”) allows focusing on particular traffic channels.
Features: Details in this article.
Highlights:
- Provides an ability to see benchmarking data at channel, location and device level
- Shows a variety of metrics including volume of sessions, average session duration, bounce rate, etc.
Pricing: Free
iSpionage provides a set of reports for competitive landscape analysis in organic and paid search.
Highlights:
- Provides an ability to track benchmarking data over period of time
- Shows competitors’ paid search keywords including cost-per-click, average search volume, average position, etc.
- Helps analyze competitors’ ads and landing pages
Pricing: From $49/month. Pricing details.
SEMrush offers analytics reports and tools to discover competitors’ strategies in organic search, paid search, and display advertising.
Features: www.semrush.com/features
Highlights:
- Provides an ability to discover competitors’ keywords, ad copies and advertising budgets
- Helps analyze competitors’ display ads across different devices
- Helps identify new publishers in display advertising
Pricing: From $69.95/month. 7 day money back guarantee. Pricing details.
SimilarWeb offers a variety of reports to understand competitors’ activity across their websites and mobile apps.
Highlights:
- Uncovers traffic sources from both desktop and mobile
- Shows trending organic and paid search keywords
- Analyzes top performing pages
Pricing: From $199/month. Pricing details.
SpyFu provides historical data on competitors’ keywords, paid search ad variations and organic search rankings.
Features: www.spyfu.com
Highlights:
- Uncovers competitors’ keywords across organic and paid search
- Shows competitors’ ad copy
- Helps eliminate low performing keywords based on historical data
Pricing: From $79/month. Limited free access is available. Pricing details.
WhatRunsWhere provides data for competitive analysis with focus on display and mobile advertising.
Features: www.whatrunswhere.com/features.php
Highlights:
- Provides historical data (over 4 years) with daily updates
- Provides data from 150,000 display publishers, from 90+ ad networks, from 15 different countries
- Helps analyze competitors’ ad copy
Pricing: From $150/month. $1 trial is available. Pricing details.
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