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How to Find Your Competitors’ Online Marketing Spend

business professional discovering the power of competitive research for business growth

Marketing your business can be a difficult thing to do, especially if you don’t know what your competitors are doing. That’s why you need to understand your competition’s marketing strategy and budget inside and out. Your competition won’t share their marketing secrets openly. So, you’ll need to find your competitors’ online marketing spend if you want to beat them.

Seems like a daunting task, doesn’t it? Luckily, there are several ways to figure out your competitors’ budget for marketing and advertising. This article will walk through the process you need to follow to uncover your competitors marketing secrets.

Research your competition.

The first step to find your competitors’ online marketing spend is to research who competes with you. But this can’t just include competitors in your local area, you need to consider who competes with you online. Companies that compete with you for website traffic may utilize digital marketing tactics that convert the customers you want most.

Once you have identified the major players in your niche, you need to find out where they’re marketing their business. Are they on social media? Do they publish blog content that your audience members find useful? Do your competitors use email marketing or pay per click advertisements?

When you know how your competition presents their business offerings to customers, you can begin uncovering their marketing budget. This is also the perfect opportunity to consider their marketing strengths, weaknesses, and how you can outdo them.

Analyze their traffic sources.

Example of a web traffic graph used for competitor analysis
Knowing where your competition’s website traffic comes from is key to competitor analysis.

The next step to find your competitors’ online marketing spend is to analyze your their traffic sources. If you know how people find their website, you can understand how the competitor spends their budget. This will give you an idea of which channels are working, and how much they are spending on each channel.

Competitor traffic analysis also helps you discover what tactics and strategies work best for them. For example, if one competitor is getting most of their traffic through organic social media management, while another uses Google Ads, you can determine which approach will be more effective for your campaign.

How to Find Your Competitors’ Keywords.

Example of finding keywords used by a competitor in competitive analysis for digital marketing
Finding your competitors keywords will help you understand their SEO and paid advertising strategies.

Keyword research is vital to any digital marketing strategy, and you need to know what your competitors are targeting. To find out what keywords your competitors use, you can use a tool like SEMrush. These tools will show you which keywords are the most popular for any website. They’ll also show you if your competitors are paying to be at the top of those search results.

Researching your competitors’ SEO keywords can give you valuable insights into their marketing budget. If you notice your competitor is getting the lion’s share of traffic from a keyword you both target, this could indicate that the keyword is included in a pay per click advertisement. If you notice that they’re getting more traffic for that same keyword, but don’t have paid advertisements, this could indicate that your competitor is investing in search engine optimization services. When you understand which keywords your competitors are chasing, you can start to uncover their marketing budget.

How to Find a Competitors Budget for Advertising

Example of a report showing the average cost for a keyword.

When know where your competition in marketing their business, it’s time to find out their online marketing spend.

You can start by researching the price points of marketing services that your competition may be using. If you notice signs of SEO or social media management services, begin gathering cost information for professional services. You can use the average costs of these services to understand how much your competition spends.

If you see that your competition is investing in paid search advertisements on Google, conduct additional keyword research. Tools like Google AdWords, Google Keyword Planner, and SEMrush can show how much each relevant keyword costs. You can use this information to understand what your competitor spends on each keyword, each month.

Leverage Your Competitor Marketing Budget Analysis

A marketing budget is a valuable tool for any business, but you need actionable information to use it correctly. When you know how to find your competitors’ online marketing spend, you have the ability to properly allocate your resources. By knowing how much money your competitors are spending on different marketing channels, you can make better decisions about where to invest your own resources and get ahead of them.

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