Half-way through this post, you’ll seriously wonder why you’ve spent so much time obsessing with Adobe/Google Analytics/Chartbeat or other web analytics tool. When you are done reading the post, you’ll be super mad that your marketing strategy is not more influenced by your competitor’s data!
Such is the power of being able to proactively identify which of your competitor’s strategies are working well, where their current customers come from, and what specific tactics you should experiment with to create and advantage for yourself.
Regular readers of the blog know of my deep love for competitive intelligence analysis. My first blog post on the topic of CIA was on 14th Aug 2006! Competitive Intelligence Analysis: Why, What & How to Choose. CIA also formed one of five foundational elements in my best-selling book Web Analytics 2.0.
Since then, as luck would have it, we have more tools, they are smarter, and have richer data-sets.
In this post we’ll go back to the wondrous world of competitive intelligence analysis. We’ll look at an incredible cluster of examples, from the simple to the sublime, that will help you learn practical strategies you can immediately go back and apply in your role as a Marketer, Analyst, or the Boss of all Things Digital.
Here are the key elements we will explore in our quest to become CI Analysis Ninjas:
+ Foundational Concepts/Caveats
How is competitive intelligence data collected?
Competitive intelligence data will never match your site’s analytics tool
Competitive intelligence tools will never match each other!
Small sites are out-of-luck
Small countries are out-of-luck
Site-centric CI vs. Ecosystem-centric CI
Tools used in this post
+ Traffic Trends Key Metrics Analysis
+ Visitor/Audience Type Profile Analysis