- Tool #1 – SimilarWeb
- Tool #2 – Adbeat
- Tool #3 – iSpionage
- Tool #4 – SEMRush
- Tool #5 – aHrefs
- Tool #6 – Ghostery
- Tool #7 – Who’s Mailing What
- Tool #8 – Crayon
- Tool #9 – Tubular
- Tool #10 – Alexa
- Tool #11 – Dataminr
- Tool #12 – WhatRunsWhere
- Tool #13 – Follow
Tool #1 – SimilarWeb
Description From The Developer: Similar Web empowers you with the insights you need to win your market. SimilarWeb gives you global multi-device market intelligence to understand, track and grow your digital market share.
Our summary Of The Tool:
Making effective marketing decisions is a must for any company who does business online, especially if they are rife with competitors. SimilarWeb helps companies evaluate their competition and use this information to improve their sales and performance.
There are four different types of services that users on SimilarWeb will find: marketing, research, sales and investors. The marketing feature focuses on SEO, building and growing partnerships and enhancing the strategies companies employ when it comes to paid search and their overall display.
The research function makes it easy to learn about competitors and how they succeed. There’s also the ability to research the target audience and shoppers to learn their behaviors and analyze trends to effectively cater to the correct audience.
Those looking to improve their sales funnel performance should use the sales function, which generates insights into creating the ideal pitch, monitors website traffic and finds quality leads to help promote more sales. Those looking to invest can benefit from the feature that helps evaluate potential investment opportunities and map out the markets as well as trends and emerging players.
SimilarWeb has a free plan for users who don’t need many features. It comes with five results per metric and up to 3 months of web traffic data and 1 month of mobile app data. The enterprise plan is more in-depth and comes with bulk features including keyword analysis, and data that dives into the specifics of who has visited the site and which pages were popular. The enterprise plans don’t have a price listed, but interested users are invited to talk to a consultant at SimilarWeb.
Tool #2 – Adbeat
Description From The Developer: Adbeat is focused on building the most comprehensive competitive intelligence platform for display advertising. Adbeat is committed to ensuring every screen and report provides real, actionable insights.
Our summary Of The Tool:
Every company has competition, no matter how big or small it is. Knowing how to best the competition is something that many companies spend hours researching, but with Adbeat, there’s no longer a need to waste all that time.
Adbeat is a software program that lets companies research their competition and learn about their marketing and sales practices. Not only does Adbeat give insight into what other companies are succeeding at, but the software also shows how companies are achieving this success.
Users simply enter the website URL of the competitor and Adbeat does the rest. With intelligent crawlers and hundreds of servers collecting ad intelligence, the information users receive is comprehensive. The data is collected across multiple channels including desktop, mobile and native advertising.
The insights feature is robust, showing users not only what competitors are doing but how their ads are working for them. Competitive monitoring looks at the publishers, landing pages and ad networks. Sales prospecting gives users a leg up on driving sales and client services works great for advertising and marketing agencies who want to keep clients informed about their progress.
Adbeat also comes with a myriad of built-in reports including one that notifies users of when competitors launch new campaigns. Comparison reports use overlay and side-by-side visualizations to compare metrics such as ad spend, key differences and voice.
Adbeat is free for users, but those who want more robust features should consider Adbeat Pro which has different plans, starting at $249 per month. Enterprise is the highest level and users need to call the company to get a quote.
Tool #3 – iSpionage
Description From The Developer: iSpionage helps you to drive targeted traffic, generate more leads, increase conversion rates, and create better offers by studying your competitors offers and landing pages.
Our summary Of The Tool:
Companies looking to gain a leg up in their niche should always keep an eye on the competition. With iSpionage, a competitor research company, the process is simplified. Now any size company — or even a marketing company catering to clients — can take advantage of the robust features that make spying as easy as entering a URL.
If the competition is constantly besting your company, it likely boils down to a more effective marketing strategy. With iSpionage, it’s possible to spy on the company and learn what drives their sales. The software searches out the competitor PPC keyword lists and also shows how much the company is spending on the ads. Competitor reports and SEO keyword lists give insight into what’s working, and it can be used for personal gain or to help clients.
Knowing which keywords to use is great, but keyword combinations yield more results. iSpionage dives deep into these details, showing which combinations competitors use on landing pages and ads to get maximum impact. It doesn’t just focus on Google, either. Users get results from Yahoo and Bing as well.
iSpionage has a free plan that offers a basic look into their features. In addition, they have four different plans for users to choose from including starter, professional, advanced and enterprise. The plans start at $59 and increase depending on the level the person chooses. Enterprise is a custom solution that requires a call to the company to get started. Plus, iSpionage offers a 30-day money-back guarantee for customers who don’t download in excess of 1,000 keywords during this trial period.
Tool #4 – SEMRush
Description From The Developer: SEMrush offers an all-in-one solution to boost your online e-commerce store and to drive more sales. SEMrush offers an expanded geo database, an industry specific database, and a niche marketing report to fit all the marketing needs of your business.
Our summary Of The Tool:
There are multiple strategies an eCommerce company can employ, but it’s always good to know what the competition is doing, especially if they experience better success. SEMRush is an all-in-one solution that comes with analytics reports, tools and projects that a company or individual can use to gain a foothold in their niche and improve sales.
The analytics reports give insight into what keywords work well for competitors and how they fair against others in the same niche. Advertising research falls under this category, too, and gives insight into what competitors pay in regards to ad budgets. It also isolates new competition in Bing Ads and AdWords, so companies know what they’re up against. Backlinks are very important to building integrity and SEMRush helps analyze the links to ensure they’re effective. The site also evaluates the product listing ads and traffic analysis for a complete insight into the type of successes and website traffic the competition receives.
The tools feature takes a good look at keywords and domains, finding keywords with less competition and comparing domains side by side. Charts and reports help with comparisons and they’re broken down into easy-to-understand layouts.
SEMRush has plans for eCommerce companies and enterprises alike. With eCommerce, the focus is on driving sales and getting more traffic while enterprise solutions involve expanded geo- and industry-specific databases, and niche marketing reports. Plans start at $99 per month and go up to enterprise levels, which require a quote. Users who choose to pay annually instead of monthly save an average of 15% on the monthly costs.
Tool #5 – aHrefs
Description From The Developer: Ahrefs helps you learn why your competitors rank so high and what you need to do to outrank them through competitve analysis, keyword research, backlink research, content research, rank tracking, and web monitoring.
Our summary Of The Tool:
Businesses who are curious about their competitors and how they achieve the successes they do need look no further. Ahrefs gives users the tools they need to scope out competitors in every way that matters.
One of the main features that Ahrefs offers is its ability to evaluate competitors, learning why they rank highly. The organic search report shows which keywords they’re ranking on and how effective the keywords are in terms of driving traffic. Top Pages gives insight into which pages are sending the most traffic to the competitor website and the Content Gap feature shows which keywords the user isn’t ranking for, but the competition is.
Companies looking for keywords should take advantage of the explorer, which uses advanced metrics including the searcher’s behavior. Backlink data from 54 billion website pages lets users filter by SEO metrics and take advantage of the data, which is updated every 15 minutes.
The content explorer tool lets users see which content is performing the best by keyword. The report shows the number of backlinks, how good the content performed on social media and in organic searches. Rank Tracker sends automatic updates to the user showing how they are ranking and their current progress. This information is sent in a report with a plotted chart.
Users interested in trying Ahrefs out short term to see if it suits their business needs can start a 7-day trial for only $7. After that, there are several different pricing plans starting at $99 per month for monthly payments or at $82 per month for annual payments. All of the features are available at every level, they’re just limited by the subscription plan in terms of numbers.
Tool #6 – Ghostery
Description From The Developer: Ghostery provides faster, safer, and smarter browsing. Ghostery helps you browse smarter by giving you control over ads and tracking technologies to speed up page loads, eliminate clutter, and protect your data.
Our summary Of The Tool:
Imagine seamlessly navigating the internet without getting hung up or sacrificing your important data. Ghostery is an extension add-on that helps improve the overall browsing experience.
The way it works is users install it in their browser and mostly forget about it. Ghostery finds all the trackers that a website has — pieces of code that observe the viewer’s behavior — and lets users decide which ones to keep active and which ones to remove. This gives the user complete control over their viewing experience, often speeding up the process as there are fewer slowdowns.
Ghostery works with several browsers including the most popular: Chrome, Firefox and Safari. Installation is simple, and when users want to, they can click on the extension button in the toolbar and see which trackers are active on a site. They can then click to deactivate the ones they don’t want, protecting their data and eliminating slowdowns.
The extension is free to install and use. There are currently no costs associated with installing Ghostery.
Tool #7 – Who’s Mailing What
Description From The Developer: Who’s Mailing What! makes it easy study to marketing activity across multiple channels. Explore the creative direct mail and email offers that have worked for hundreds of top companies to better craft some new ideas for your next marketing campaign.
Our summary Of The Tool:
Email marketing is an essential tool for any company with an online presence. It’s important to be able to reach customers across multiple channels, but it’s also critical that the message has an impact, drawing readers to take action. But how do you know what works, and where can one garner inspiration?
Enter Who’s Mailing What!, a platform that’s aimed at the study of marketing and helping individuals and agencies come up with stellar strategies that drive sales. The platform consists of both direct mail and email campaigns, with millions of samples stored in an extensive database.
Users get access to these campaigns on multiple devices, including smartphones, tablets and computers. They can drill down by industry or subcategory and use the information to craft their own campaigns. The saved data comes in picture form, giving users the full idea to spark inspiration. In addition, they have access to email subject lines designed to capture attention and envelope teaser copy.
Who’s Mailing What! users can filter the data by several factors including channel, controls, date range and format type to name a few. This means more tailored data that’s helpful in creating campaigns that deliver results.
To get started, interested parties should contact Who’s Mailing What! via email or request a demo through the website.
Tool #8 – Crayon
Description From The Developer: Crayon is a market and competitive intelligence company that enables businesses to track, analyze, and act on everything happening outside their four walls. Crayon’s real-time competitive insights platform helps to enable sales to win more deals, improve marketing performance to break through crowded markets, and inform product and executive strategy to build and launch winning products.
Our summary Of The Tool:
Crayon is a competitive intelligence and analysis platform that’s designed to offer real-time insights to help businesses improve their marketing performance, win more sales deals and implement effective strategies to help foster product growth.
The main indicator of a company’s success is how their website performs. Competitive insights from Crayon include several analyses on pricing and product changes, campaigns and content launches. Even customer reviews are targeted and the information is displayed on the user’s dashboard.
Market intelligence research delves into the data by tracking the sources and data points that make a difference. Companies can cut down on the amount of research that they do with Crayon’s automated system that does more research in less time. The intel users do receive is prioritized, curated and organized. Best of all, they can filter through the reports to the details that matter most to them.
The information helps teams collaborate and share insights so they can come up with strategic actions that improve sales and result in more effective marketing campaigns.
Crayon offers a demo to interested users, all they have to do is request one on the site. They can also sign up for free and get started with the features right away.
Tool #9 – Tubular
Description From The Developer: Tubular empowers publishers, agencies and brands to succeed in the rapidly changing world of video. Tubular Intelligence powers you to benchmark yourself against the competition and identify unique opportunities to increase viewership and overall engagement within your target audience.
Our summary Of The Tool:
The digital video era is growing by leaps and bounds, and it only makes sense that big and small brands alike are trying to jump on the bandwagon. There’s such a thing as a poorly executed video, however, and Tubular comes to the rescue by analyzing the current trends and ensuring the best return on investment (ROI).
Tubular stands out from other tools in that it analyzes over 5 billion videos globally. Additionally, they monitor the viewing habits of over 400 million global consumers and pass this information onto companies looking to sign up and take advantage of a potentially viral video. Tubular also evaluates the 13 million creators of online videos including brands and media companies.
With Tubular intelligence, users get insight that allows them to benchmark their company alongside others in order to find areas where they can stand out. Videos are analyzed across the social media sites including Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Insights make it possible to monetize the videos and gain income from them through sponsored content data.
Prices are not listed on Tubular’s site, but the company does invite users to take a product demo to see if it can prove useful for them.
Tool #10 – Alexa
Description From The Developer: Alexa’s marketing stack provides all the tools you need to improve your SEO and PPC strategy, prove your success, and discover new ideas for growing your traffic.
Our summary Of The Tool:
No matter what type of business you run, there are multiple untapped avenues that you’ve likely not thought of. Enter Alexa, a software that centers on competitive analysis and SEO.
There are five major tools that Alexa offers including keyword research, competitive website analysis, SEO analysis, backlink checking and target audience analysis.
Keyword research is important because it’s the keywords that define the success of an ad or video campaign. Knowing which ones rank and where the gaps lie can help companies step out of the shadows of their competitors. This service also involves finding competitor keywords and comparing search traffic. Competitive website analysis searches out the other players in the arena and compares their traffic to the user’s.
SEO analysis is important as it determines how popular the site is in search rankings and also discovers where the gaps are. This service searches out the keywords competitors are using and what shoppers are looking for. It also evaluates the backlinks — which goes hand in hand with the check backlinks service. With this, Alexa compares backlinks, uncovering gap areas, as well as searching for more opportunities and evaluating the performance.
Target audience analysis is very important because catering to a general group is not enough to draw sales. Plus, it means spending more money with fewer results. Instead, Alexa helps users find and reach their target audience, engaging and converting them in the process.
Alexa has several different products with monthly subscriptions depending on what the user is looking for. Marketing stack plans start at $149 per month for individuals, with a 14-day free trial. Those who need more users should sign up for the agency plan which comes with 30 days free and a $299 per month price tag. Website traffic analysis services are available for $79 per month and the certified Alexa rank ranges from $19.99 per month to $799 per month depending on the number of pageviews a website receives monthly.
Tool #11 – Dataminr
Description From The Developer: Dataminr discovers high-impact events instantly and critical breaking information long before it’s in the news. Dataminr’s clients are the first to know about high-impact events and critical breaking information, enabling them to act faster and stay one step ahead.
Our summary Of The Tool:
Dataminr works on delivering real-time updates to companies in an attempt to keep them one step ahead of the breaking news. They cater to three major sectors: corporate, finance and public.
When it comes to corporate security, Dataminr keeps companies updated on major breaking news and events so they can take strategic action to protect their company, interests and employees. Knowing dangers ahead of the news also ensures they can take proper security precautions. Alerts are sent via websites, mobile apps or email, and they can even be integrated into a risk management tool or app.
When it comes to the finance sector, knowledge is power. Market events can have devastating consequences, but knowing that a major event is coming ahead of time can help mitigate the risk. Not only that but Dataminr helps with deepening the perspective and helping clients gain a competitive edge.
The public sector relates to the first response teams, and Dataminr works on getting them where they need to be. This helps improve response time and limit casualties.
In order to get started, users need to contact Dataminr for a quote and to discuss their business needs.
Tool #12 – WhatRunsWhere
Description From The Developer: WhatRunsWhere provides you with the digital ad intelligence you need to spend your dollars more efficiently and grow your business. WhatRunsWhere makes it easier to discover winning strategies, learn which ads perform best and build more profitable campaigns.
Our summary Of The Tool:
WhatRunsWhere offers comprehensive analysis on ad intelligence, making it easier for customers to create effective digital campaigns that bring in results. This software delves deep into what makes a campaign effective and shares results with customers in real time.
The analysis searches out brand and affiliate ads, which users can segment and filter through according to specific metrics such as keyword, country, ad type and others. The information comes from five different countries and over 60 million ads.
With WhatRunsWhere, users can get access to the ads that perform the best, landing pages that garner traffic and much more. The data is collected 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to keep users up to date on developments. This ensures they spend their money effectively and avoid running campaigns that garner little results.
WhatRunsWhere comes with several subscription plans that start at $299 per month and come with discounts for annual billing. The enterprise subscription requires a phone call to the company to discuss specific needs and pricing. There’s also a demo so potential customers can review all of the features and determine if the tool is for them.
Tool #13 – Follow
Description From The Developer: Follow allows you to see a high-level overview of any site, across a variety of sources. Follow pulls data from many partners to bring you the widest & most comprehensive, high-level overview of any site’s marketing data.
Our summary Of The Tool:
Marketing data helps businesses make educated decisions about the future trajectory of individual ads, campaigns and content. Follow is a service that provides this data to customers, with a full toolset that evaluates several factors.
The toolset is varied, offering features such as traffic estimates, SEO and SEM to name a few. Research is simple and quick, eliminating the need to spend hours poring over different websites and analyzing data. Instead, the system does the work, providing results in mere seconds.
There’s no need to stalk Follow, either. The site sends notifications for each site that the user is following whenever there’s a newsworthy mention. Alerts show activity such as when a website was mentioned, whether it’s on a social media site or a blog.
The data the user receives is organized into easy-to-understand reports, plus users can sort it how they need to present it to co-workers, shareholders and friends. Plus the software is accessible anywhere, whether on a smartphone, tablet or computer.
The intelligence toolbar is a Chrome or Firefox extension, that provides insight at the click of a mouse button. No more navigating to the site, users can see the data for any website they’re on by activating the extension.
The pricing for Follow varies, depending on the number of monthly lookups a customer needs. Plans range from free to $297 per month, though users can save up to 33% depending on the plan when they pay annually instead of monthly.
