Growing a business is no small feat. At some point, you will run into bottlenecks, especially if you’re not already tracking your competition.
While monitoring your competitors by itself is not a magic fix-all, its benefits to your business are abundant.
Track and learn from your competitors and you don’t have to wonder about whether you’re going in the right direction.
You pick from what’s already working for your competitors. No second-guessing. No need to reinvent the wheel.
With tools like Panoramata, you can instantly look for a brand’s website changes, software tools the brand uses, SMS marketing, content strategy (including SEO and organic content), ads, and email marketing content.
The question is this: What exactly do you track and learn from your competitors? What should you pick and what can you ignore?
Is there a way to narrow down and seek exactly what you should look for, instead of staring at your competitors’ websites on the screen?
Here is the exact set of things you should look for:
- Digital Marketing Strategy
- Email Marketing, Newsletters, and Ads
- Software and Marketing Stack
- Content and Organic Traffic
Why should you monitor your competitors?
Look, we get it. Tracking competitors is another addition to your plate and you’re already stretched out as it is with the tricky balancing act of digital marketing.
Why is competitor tracking a must? These are just a few reasons why:
Make better decisions based on data
You’re flying blind more often than not if you’re laser-focused on just your own marketing. Being guided by intuition is detrimental to campaign success.
Once you see the data, you can make an informed judgment based on facts. This results in better decision-making that will have a positive impact.
Stay abreast of trends and market changes
Customer preferences and the market switch quickly, making it hard to see which tactics work and what selling points to highlight to your target audience.
You have to shift when the market shifts. When it zigs and zags, you follow or else risk getting left behind.
Identify opportunities and threats
The threat of new entrants is present in any industry. Competitor tracking will help you catch a whiff of these before they present bigger problems.
Conversely, opportunities to differentiate your business abounds, especially if you keep your eyes on your competitors’ moves.
Once you see the data, you can make an informed judgment based on facts. This results in better decision-making that will have a positive impact.
Things to track when monitoring your competitors
Competitors' Marketing Strategy
What does a brand do with its overall marketing strategy? Do they have organic content such as blogs or SEO-optimized pages?
Does the particular brand you are looking at roll out and manage Google Shopping ads, Facebook Ads, regular Google Ads, Instagram ads, and so on?
Does the brand send out regular email marketing campaigns? If yes, what kind of emails do they send? What do those emails look like?
What kind of visuals do those email marketing messages ship with?
What about other marketing channels, such as SMS marketing and so on?
Spend time trying to get a holistic view of a brand’s complete marketing strategy.
Competitors' Email Marketing
Email marketing is a money-maker for ecommerce. You know it. We know it.
- How exactly are these email campaigns run?
- How many emails per day or per week?
- What is the frequency of these email messages?
- Does the brand send out automated email campaigns? One-off broadcast messages? Or both?
- What kind of subject lines are used for these emails? What’s the average character length of these emails? What’s the spam score? Do they use emojis (or not)?
- What time are these emails sent out? What do these emails contain? What kind of copy (or content) is used within these emails?
You don’t have to be a super sleuth or hire a detective agency. Using one simple tool like Panoramata puts all of this information (including the actual email messages) at your fingertips.
Software and Marketing Stack
You likely use certain SaaS tools and marketing apps to run and manage your brand (notwithstanding the actual eCommerce platform used -- such as Shopify, WooCommerce, or BigCommerce).
Tools or marketing apps (also called “marketing stack”) can be categorized as follows:
- CMS, content management tools, or platforms used.
- Analytics tools (along with Google Analytics, Google tags, and Google Tag Manager)
- Pixels used for tracking (such as Facebook Pixel)
- Tools for Heatmap, click flow, and session replays.
- Email marketing tools used (Klaviyo, Mailchimp, or others)
- Customer service platforms used (Gorgias, Zendesk, and others)
Panoramata instantly gives you a quick view of the tools a particular brand uses for marketing, customer management, CMS, advertising, analytics, and more.
Content and SEO Traffic
Content marketing, content strategy, and SEO are often long-term and consistently performing marketing channels for ecommerce businesses and brands that put in the effort.
Are your competitors using content strategy, content marketing, and SEO? Are they powering their growth by using time-tested methods of inbound marketing?
If you found your particular competing brand on search (or if you ended up on their website through regular search), you know it’s working for them.
Ways to track your competitor’s marketing strategy
Sign up for their newsletter
Tracking competitor emails is as easy as signing up to be part of their mailing list. You can find their newsletter info on their website.
Being a subscriber ensures a steady stream of emails that you can source ideas from.
Visit their website regularly
Your competitor’s website changes can tell you a lot about how they’re positioning themselves and how they’re changing up their tactics to appeal to their target audience better.
Keep an eye out for this and make sure to visit their website regularly or sign up for competitor intelligence tools that do the monitoring for you.
Follow and engage with their social media accounts
The secrets to your competitor’s social media strategy are obvious when you track their best performing posts.
Therefore, it makes sense to follow their social media profiles and analyze which posts are garnering the most engagement.
Look up their social media ads on digital ad libraries
One of the easiest and most effective ways to track your competitor’s marketing strategy is to dive into their paid advertising campaigns.
Platforms like Meta’s Ad Library, TikTok’s Creative Center, and LinkedIn’s Ad Library offer free access to a searchable archive of active ads.
You can view what kind of messaging they’re using, how often they launch new creatives, what visuals they lean on, and even what calls-to-action they’re testing.
Click on their ads to view their landing pages
Landing pages are where your competitors convert traffic into leads, sign-ups, or purchases—so exploring them can tell you a lot about what’s working in their funnel.
When you come across your competitor’s ads on Google, Facebook, or even YouTube, don’t just scroll past. Click on them to see where they lead.
What kind of offer are they making? What’s the tone of the messaging—aggressive, educational, playful?
Take note of the layout too: are they using testimonials, trust badges, or urgency tactics like countdown timers?
These details give you clues into what tactics they believe will drive conversions.
Set up Google alerts
Google Alerts is a free and simple way to keep tabs on your competitors without actively searching for updates.
By setting up alerts for your competitors’ brand names, product launches, key employees, or campaign slogans, you’ll get email notifications whenever new content mentioning them is indexed by Google.
This could include news articles, press releases, blog posts, or interviews—helping you stay on top of their latest moves.
Read customer reviews
Customer reviews are a goldmine for understanding both your competitor’s strengths and their blind spots. By browsing reviews on platforms like Trustpilot, G2, Capterra, and even product listings on Amazon, you can see firsthand what real users think.
Look for patterns in complaints—are people frustrated by poor customer support, hidden fees, or complicated onboarding? On the flip side, what do customers consistently praise?
This gives you insight into how your competitor positions their product and where their customer experience might be falling short.
Automate competitor tracking with Panoramata
But you could do more: Using Panoramata, find out if your competitors have the makings of a well-optimized and robust content marketing or SEO strategy in place.
Instantly get access to:
- Competitor’s domain rating.
- Estimated Organic Traffic per month (plus statistics to show performance compared to the previous period)
- Total ranking keywords (Top 100)
- Linked domains
- Backlink profile
Panoramata.co tracks an ever-growing list of brands, including but not limited to ecommerce, SaaS, B2B, and non-profits, so you can remove manual methods of tracking for good. Welcome to the 21st century where competitor intelligence is done for you.
Peek at your competition’s organic marketing profile, ad campaigns, email marketing campaigns, marketing journeys, sales flows, and marketing stacks. This way, you get a full view of their techniques and actions and can use them for your own goals.
Start today and see the benefits for yourself.
Ready to start your own competitive analysis? Grab your free competitive analysis template below. If you’d like to learn more about Panoramata, book a demo with us or take it out for a spin by signing up here.
FAQs
Why is competitor tracking important for business growth?
It helps businesses make informed decisions, adapt to market changes, and identify opportunities and threats to gain a competitive advantage.
What specific aspects of a competitor's strategy should be tracked?
Businesses should track their competitors' overall digital marketing strategy, email campaigns, software and marketing tools, and content/SEO performance.
Are there tools to automate competitor tracking?
Yes, tools like Panoramata can automate the process of tracking competitor website changes, software usage, email marketing, content strategy, and advertising.
