Competitive intelligence requires you to embrace the competitive landscape and create strategies to combat your competitors. But, how exactly do you determine what your competitors are doing? How do you make sense of all the information available on your competitors? How do you determine strategies to beat your competitors? How do you find the right competitive intelligence tools to help you beat your competitors?
It’s important to utilize tools and resources, not just to make gathering the information easier and more efficient, but to make sense of it all and turn it into actionable strategies. In this blog, I’ll be discussing 11 Competitive Intelligence Tools that you should be using to make your life easier and your competitive intelligence better.
1. Insightsfirst
Insightsfirst is a competitive and market intelligence platform designed to sort through thousands of data points and provide the most relevant information to you, summarized by expert analysts.
Not only does Insightsfirst sort through all that information for you, but it provides strategic insights based on the curated information. It can assess market opportunities and track competitors identify product portfolio gaps, identify content gaps across your buyer’s journey and provide actionable account and competitor insights across the sales journey.
What It Does
Insightsfirst can transform your intelligence framework. Here are some of the ways Insightsfirst will transform your business’s intelligence framework:
- Anticipating disruption
- Exploring opportunities
- Measuring performance
- Supporting execution
- Activating sales and pipeline acceleration
- Developing customer engagement research
- Optimizing marketing operations
- Identifying and analyzing your target market
When to Use It
Insightsfirst is great to use at all stages of your competitive and market intelligence journey. Its versatility in identifying key points in your sales journey and buyers journey proves to be one of many key features on the platform.
Key Features
Insightsfirst has many great features for your competitive and market intelligence strategies, but some of its most useful features include:
- Searchable Knowledge Repository
- Access to a Network of Expert Consultants
- Shared Online Knowledge Database
- Custom Alerts
- AI-powered to deliver fast, up-to-date information
- Customizable dashboard and visualizations
- Analytical Frameworks
Price
Evalueserve, the company behind Insightsfirst, works with clients to customize the features of Insightsfirst to fit each client’s unique business needs. Pricing varies. Request a demo now.
Forrester Research Named Evalueserve’s Insightsfirst a Strong Performer
The Forrester Wave™:
Market & Competitive Intelligence Platforms, Q2 2023
2. SEMRush
SEMRush is one of the best keyword research and tracking tools available online. It can track keywords, backlinks and traffic that you and your competitors are competing for and winning on.
What It Does
SEMRush allows you to break down and analyze competitors in a variety of digitally focused categories from various perspectives: Organic keywords, backlinking, content performance, display and search advertising, social media performance, PPC, and website traffic.
It provides many resources necessary to make informed, data-driven decisions. You will be able to see how your competitors attract customers online, monitor your competitors’ reputation, and identify opportunities for growth in the online landscape.
When to Use It
You should use SEMrush when tracking your competitors ranking on both organic and paid keywords, advertising, content performance, and social media to make informed marketing decisions.
Key Features
- PPC and Advertising tracking and analysis
- Backlink analysis
- Keyword tracking and analysis
- Detailed website traffic
- Social media tracking
- Content performance
Price
SEMRush has 3 different tiers and offers customization beyond the 3 tiers. Plans range from $119.95/month to $449.95/month. Customization of the platform beyond the 3 available tiers may cost an additional monthly fee.
3. Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a platform used to monitor website traffic, campaign performance and conversions, and visitor demographics.
What It Does
Google Analytics is an all-in-one analytics platform for web performance, campaign performance and visitor demographics. It can also be used to track user behavior and what social platforms are best to target. Google Analytics can show you in depth details about your website visitors. It can outline things like where your visitors originated from, how long they stay on different pages of your website, the page paths they take within your website, and where in the world they are viewing your website from.
Not only does it show you in-depth details about your visitors, but it can outline campaign and website performance through customizable reports and alerts. You can create dashboards to target specific data points on your website that can outline the information you need to make informed decisions to tackle the competitive landscape.
When to Use It
Use Google Analytics when you want to analyze in-depth details about the visitors on your website or overall website performance.
Key Features
- Automatic Collection of Data
- Customizable Dashboard and Reports
- Easy Integration with multiple tools and platforms
- Measurable Internal Site Search
- In-depth Detail on Visitor Behavior and Demographics
- Campaign Tracking
Price
Google Analytics is completely free to use and integrate with your website.
4. HubSpot
HubSpot is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform built to power inbound approach and help you and your customers grow more.
What it does
HubSpot has multiple different services you can add into the platform, but at the basic level, HubSpot acts as a CRM and marketing automation platform. It has capabilities to assist with sales by providing deeper insights into your prospects, automating tasks like email and outreach, and organizing leads among teams. It can assist with marketing by providing insights on traffic growth, visitor conversion, and providing tools for landing pages, automation, analytics and more.
It can also act as a customer service hub with tools to help you connect with customers and turn them into promoters for business growth. The software and services available within HubSpot can streamline a lot of business processes within sales, marketing, and analytics.
When to use it
Use HubSpot (CRM) when you need a centralized location and software for social media, landing pages, company blog, marketing automation, web and email analytics, and SEO.
Key Features
- Website CMS
- Blogging Platform
- Social Media Platform
- Analytics Software
- Email Marketing Platform
- CRM
- Landing pages and call to action tools
- Exportable data to Excel or Google Sheets
- Personalization for specific business needs
Pricing
HubSpot has a free starter package. Additional features beyond the free starter pack range from $45/month to $3,200/month depending on your specific business’ needs.
5. Moz
Moz is an all-in-one SEO web software that provides tools designed to improve your search engine ranking and visibility.
What it does
MozPro can be integrated with Google Analytics to help businesses manage their SEO campaigns. MozPro can help you understand your audience better—you can track if your audience is coming from paid ads, search, or social media. You can also view site rankings. MozPro allows you to track where your website and pages rank in Google searches. It also tracks specific keywords and where you rank on those words.
MozPro offers their own crawler to dig through your site for problems. The crawler constantly goes through your website to search for any problems affecting customer experience and reports them immediately for you and your team to fix.
When to use it
Use Moz for all your SEO needs. Manage and monitor your SEO campaigns with ease and integrate with Google Analytics.
Key Features
- Audience Analysis
- Site Ranking
- Keyword Tracking
- Custom Crawler and Auditing
- Page Optimization
- MozBar Chrome Extension
Pricing
MozPro comes in with 4 different packages ranging from $99/month to $599/month.
6. Owler
Owler is a customizable sales and marketing tool designed to provide alerts on both you and your competitors.
What it does
Owler can be used for marketing and sales teams. It provides alerts when news is reported on your business, your clients, and your competitors. Some of the key alerts it can provide include product announcements, IPOs, key hires, conference sponsorships, new offices, and mergers & acquisitions. Owler can integrate with your CRM to track news on active prospects and customers as well.
When to use it
Use Owler to keep up with news alerts on your business, clients, and competitors.
Key Features
- Customizable alerts on prospects, customers, clients, and competitors
- Integration with CRM platforms
- Competitor identification
- Opportunity identification
Pricing
Owler offers a free version of its platform for search purposes only. Pricing on professional packages begins at $99/year and goes as high as $420/year with an additional, customizable package specifically for Sales Teams. More information on the Sales Teams package requires contacting Owler customer service.
7. Zoominfo
Zoominfo is a SaaS company that sells access to a database of information about businesspeople and company sales, market, and recruiting professionals.
What it does
Zoominfo sells access to a database of contact information for employees at millions of companies. It also identifies competitors of those businesses. It provides scoops on news about businesses you are targeting.
Zoominfo has a feature called FormComplete that allows you to shorten forms and increase conversion rates. Prospective customers enter their Email and Zoominfo will automatically fill the rest. Zoominfo has a feature called Enrich, which fills in the gaps in your own marketing database with available information on the platform.
When to use it
Use Zoominfo when creating contact lists and generating leads. This software allows you to gathering contact information for prospective clients.
Key Features
- Employee Contact Availability
- Company Contact Availability
- Data Accuracy
- Lead Builder
- Integration into CRM
- Filtering
- Market Insights
- Industry Research Availability
Pricing
Zoominfo does have a free trial and free version available. For additional pricing details, contact Zoominfo.
8. BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is a cloud-based platform that helps customers discover the best engagement, content, and outreach opportunities across social and research by identifying new key words, trending stories, customer questions and successful content while monitoring what’s most important to your business.
What it does
BuzzSumo focuses on 4 key areas:
- Content Discovery
- Content Research
- Media Monitoring
- Influencer Research
The platform helps users find new media and publicity opportunities with tools that track your brand name and reputation, competitors’ brand, backlinks of a specific website, keywords, authors, and published content across your industry.
BuzzSumo can also conduct in-depth content analyses. It shows total engagement, individual social network engagement, Facebook reactions, Evergreen scores, total number of links, etc. It spots patterns and trends across your social networks and compares your performance with competitors’.
When to use it
Use BuzzSumo when you want to discover content, research what content is performing well, monitor media outlets and performance, and research influencers in your industry.
Key Features
- Social Media Analysis
- Content Monitoring
- Backlink Analysis
- Competitor Analysis
- Keyword Tracking
- Brand and Reputation Tracking
- Media Tracking
- Opportunity Identification
Pricing
BuzzSumo has 4 packages available ranging from $99/month to $499+/month. The $499+/month package can be custom tailored to the needs of any business. Custom features may include added fees.
9. RivalIQ
RivalIQ is a social media competitive intelligence platform that helps users strengthen their social media strategy through analytics.
What it does
RivalIQ conducts in-depth analyses on every channel to provide you insights about your competition’s social media strategies and help you adapt your own. It provides competitive analysis, social posts analysis, social reporting and social media audits over you and your competitors various social platforms.
RivalIQ will run head-to-head analytics over your social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
When to use it
Use RivalIQ when you are seeking information about competitors’ social media strategies.
Key Features
- Head-to-head competitive analysis of social platforms
- Social Reporting
- Social Media Audits
- Social Post Analytics
Pricing
RivalIQ has 3 packages available ranging from $199/month to $499/month with more add-on features available for an extra fee.
10. G2 Crowd
G2 Crowd is a third-party review site for business software and services.
What it does
G2 Crowd is a third-party review site for businesses to connect with customers and clients. Businesses can post their software or services and request reviews from customers.
G2 Crowd lets businesses post description, key features, and related media about their software or services. Businesses can review competitors’ pages and reviews to see where competitors’ customers are dissatisfied or what features they like best.
When to use it
Use G2 Crowd to connect with customers and clients and seek reviews. It can also be used to stay updated with competitors’ successes and setbacks.
Key Features
- Ratings System
- Reviews
- Product Pages
- Services Pages
- Verified Customer Interactions
Pricing
G2 Crowd is free when posting your products or services. G2 Crowd has additional features and software that may cost an additional fee. For more information, contact G2 crowd directly.
11. Glassdoor
Glassdoor is an anonymous review site for current and former employees to rate employers. Glassdoor has a Glassdoor for Employers that lets employers engage with employees and improve the brand authenticity.
What it does
Glassdoor lets users rate their former or current employers anonymously. Users can post their job title, how long they worked at the company, and leave reviews about what it is like to work there. It also shows somewhat accurate salaries for job positions. It also functions as job board for prospective employees.
Glassdoor for Employers acts as a brand improvement platform by letting employers engage with current, former, and potential employees.
It provides insights into employee experience and helps influence candidates by letting employers improve brand with authentic stories.
When to use it
User Glassdoor when seeking information about employee satisfaction on competitors, annual salaries for similar positions, or upcoming positions competitors may be trying to fill.
Key Features
- Employee Reviews
- Job Board
- Salary information
- Job Titles
- Employee and Employer Insights
- Reaching Talent
- Integration with other Job Boards
Pricing
Glassdoor is free for users to browse. Glassdoor for Employers has 3 tiers. Contact their sales team for pricing information.
Conclusion
Whether you pick and choose or use them all, these 11 tools will help you improve your competitive intelligence game. Ranging from gathering information for actionable insights with Insightsfirst to engaging with your employees and recruiting new teammates with Glassdoor for Employers, competitive intelligence is a growing field that isn’t going away.
Keep up to date with your competitors, engage your employees, and gather intel on market trends. Use these tools to improve your competitive intelligence awareness and strategies and beat out the competition.
