Beat Your Competitor at Their Own Game: Fine-Tune Your Digital Marketing
If you want to lead the market, you must know what weapons your competitor uses. And ideally, use the same ones to beat them. Learn how to uncover their strategic steps with these easy-to-use tools.
Getting inspired, that’s what we could call it. This is basically about data search and collecting plus analyzing your competitor's behavior. No rocket science here. Visit their profiles and use one of the tools I recommend below!
Table of contents:
Social Media Spy
YouTube and Google Ads Under the Microscope
Fine-Tune Your Digital Marketing
Just Get Started
Social Media Spy
To conquer the world of social media and attract your followers’ attention, you must know how your rival talks to their audience.
Analyze their behavior and compare it with your activity on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or X. After this, it’s time to think of what could be improved on your side.
Remember, the best spy is the customer themselves. That’s why you should put yourself in their shoes while analyzing your competitor’s profile. And focus on things that would be important for your potential customers.
Ask yourself: What am I looking for and why? Does this seller offer exactly that?
Also, ask yourself whether your rival matches your interests as a potential customer. And what extra they offer.
Then continue with taking off the shoes of a customer and changing into ones of a tactician. Now, focus on your competitor’s marketing steps taken when creating their posts and ads.
Pay attention to the type of content they share (static posts vs. videos, reels vs. classic format of videos), how often they post on their social media, and how their copywriting texts look.
Let’s move to the numbers now.
Facebook and Instagram
After checking your visitor numbers, it’s time to check the statistics of your competitor’s ads.
You can do this for free using the Meta Ads Library tool.
Or consider giving a chance to one of these paid tools that will help you to see the whole statistics of your rival’s ads:
- Rival IQ
Rival IQ will help you with tracking the whole activity of a company. From the social engagement (sharing, commenting, and impressions) to the analysis of posting itself.
This tool can also generate reports, compare the performance of your posts and your competitor’s posts, and create a strategy for you on how to be more successful in the waters of social media.
- Sprout Social
Similarly to Rival IQ, Sprout Social will help you to track your rival’s performance.
A big advantage here is the possibility to set the following keywords and hashtags. If you do so, the tool will notify you about a new post or ad your rival shares with a certain hashtag or keyword.
- Hootsuite
Hootsuite is another popular tool for social media management and tracking. Besides the shared functionalities with the two tools mentioned above, it will help you to understand how your competitor thinks. And therefore, how they work with their marketing strategy.
- Semrush
Semrush, a brilliant platform for social media management and analysis.
If you want to focus on the SEO of your website and the marketing strategy as such, I highly recommend trying Semrush.
TikTok and X
And what about TikTok ads? Well, you can find your competitor’s numbers simply and for free in the TikTok Ads Library.
Besides TikTok Ads Library, you might also be interested in trying one of these paid tools that will give you a deeper insight into your rival’s activity on social media:
- Brandwatch
If your goal is to create a successful online campaign on TikTok or X and you want to know who your enemy in these spaces is, try Brandwatch.
It will help you with tracking their numbers as well as providing a better understanding of the needs of your potential customers, cooperation with influencers, or evaluating how popular your current campaigns are.
- Pentos
Analytics tool for TikTok, thanks to which you can find out where your competitor stands.
But it will also help you with the creation of posts itself. For example, thanks to Pentos, you can find what audio falls into current trends. And therefore, has the potential to bring you more views.
YouTube and Google Ads Under the Microscope
Did you know that you can spy on your competitors’ Google ads completely for free?
Yes, that’s right! Now you’re probably wondering how to do that. Simply. Search for the ads in the Ads Transparency Center.
And if you’d like to know how their website is doing, go to SimilarWeb.
SimilarWeb has a free version, too. It will for example show you how the website ranks, how many visitors it has, or how long the visitor spent there. To unlock more functionalities, pick one of their paid plans.
Fine-Tune Your Digital Marketing
When knowing what works for your competitor, you can quite easily fine-tune your own digital marketing strategy.
But be careful whom you take the inspiration from.
Not all tactics your competitor uses will put you at the top of your game. If you like them, use them with caution to prevent any negative impacts it could have on your company.
Tell me in detail what social media marketing strategy (on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and X) my competitor [your competitor's name] is using. Also, advise me on how I can use the same strategy for my company [your company’s name], which specializes in [your field].
Just Get Started
When you have all the numbers of your rival in your hands, and the strategy done to perfection, it’s time to fight them.
Play according to their rules and use the same weapons they do. Like that, you can possibly become the leader in your market sector.
