12 Competitor Analysis Tools That Can Fuel Your Strategy

Understanding what works in your industry—and what doesn’t—can make all the difference between thriving and merely surviving.

This is where competitor analysis tools come into play. Such tools help you uncover your competitors' strategies, track their performance across different platforms, and identify opportunities for your own improvement.

Whether you’re looking to analyze the competition’s online presence, boost your SEO, or monitor competitor PPC campaigns, leveraging the right tool can give you actionable insights to refine your marketing efforts.

In this guide, we’ll explore the best tools for keeping track of your competition, each tailored to different business needs.

Essential competitor analysis tools for effective research

• Competitive analysis tools for social benchmarking
• Competitive analysis tools for social media monitoring and listening
• Competitive analysis tools for SEO & content strategy evaluation
• PPC competitor analysis tools
• Competitor analysis tools for market intelligence
• Competitor analysis tools for pricing & product intelligence

Why leverage a competitor analysis tool?

Competitor analysis tools are essential for gaining insights into your competitors' strategies, helping you identify strengths and weaknesses in both your approach and theirs. There are important benefits your marketing team reaps by investing in a benchmarking tool.

Here are a few reasons you should leverage a competitive analysis tool as a part of your marketing analysis strategy:

• Automate competitor research across multiple mediums: Your competitors have a presence across a number of platforms and mediums. Manually analyzing each individual competitor’s presence would take valuable time that you shouldn’t have to dedicate to competitive research—especially when you can rely on a tool to automate it for you.

• Benchmark performance: See how your strategy stacks up against the competition in a digestible dashboard. Look at graphs that easily compare your own performance to those you’re competing against so you know whether you need to make any adjustments.

• Identify your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses: Get a clear picture of what your competitors do well so you can improve your own strategy as well as what you’re already doing better so that you can stay ahead of the curve.

• Track market trends: Staying on top of trends gives you a better position in the market. Knowing what competitors are launching, what customers are saying, and other key trends helps you launch the right products at the right time and address customer needs efficiently.

Key features to look for in a competitive analysis tool

Before we dive into our list of the top competitor analysis tools, let’s cover some must-have features you should be looking for in your software of choice.

• Social media insights: Look for a tool that gives you insight into how your competitors are performing on social media so you can ensure your strategy is up to par.

• Social media monitoring & sentiment analysis: You want the ability to monitor conversations on social media so that you can gauge details like how people feel about your business versus your competitors and how people feel about your industry as a whole.

• SEO & keyword analysis: The right competitive analysis tool can help you find the best keywords to target with your website content.

• Web traffic & audience analysis: Find a tool that can showcase your website traffic alongside your competitors so that you can see how you compare.

• Paid advertising tracking: Use your competitor analysis tool to help you find the right keywords to track so that you can compete with others in your industry for ad placements.

• Market trend identification & industry benchmarking: Make sure you’re ahead of the curve in your industry by using a competitor analysis tool that helps you understand and identify market trends.

What makes a competitor analysis tool worth choosing?

Other than these key features, what else should you be looking for when choosing the best competitive analysis platform for your business?

First, pay attention to the tool’s flexibility. Does it offer a lot of features that you can use in different ways? Better yet, does it come with integrations that make the tool seamlessly fit into your tech stack?

Next, consider your reporting capabilities. Look for automated reporting so that you don’t have to spend time manually building out dashboards and reports for your team.

Finally, find a tool that’s easy to use. You don’t want to waste too much time and resources on training your team how to use the tool. Instead, find an intuitive option that your team can hit the ground running with.

Top competitor analysis tools on the market right now

Competitive analysis tools for social benchmarking

To stay competitive, businesses need to analyze social media competitors by tracking their engagement rates, content strategy and performance, and audience growth across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

And below you'll find the best tools for this job.

#1. Socialinsider: for benchmarking performance and identifying competitors’ content strategies

Socialinsider is a social media analytics and benchmarking tool that makes it easy for companies to look at their own social media performance alongside each of their competitors.

Features available:

• Direct competitor benchmarking that allows users to compare followers, followers growth, engagement analysis, top posts from different platforms, number of published posts, and views

• Industry-level benchmarking that provides industry data for metrics like total engagement, organic posts distribution, post types, engagement distribution, and engagement by post types (available only for Facebook and Instagram)

• Cross-channel analysis that lets users get a glimpse of a brand’s entire online presence with metrics and KPIs like followers, number of posts, engagement, impressions, video views, and top-performing posts

• Content pillar analysis that gives users insight into the topics that their competitors are talking about on social media, along with how engaging each content pillar appears to be

Pros:

• The tool is extremely easy to jump in and start using, requiring little to no training time beforehand.
• The reports and graphs are easy to analyze and are visually appealing so they can easily be incorporated into your team’s reporting.
• It provides in-depth metrics that allow businesses to gain insightful strategy optimization insights.

Cons:

• No social media scheduling capabilities included, so it’s not a full-service social media management tool

Reviews:

I love that I can set up benchmarking sets to compare several competitor brands to my client, which is helpful for monitoring competitors as well as my client’s progress. Socialinsider is a great tool for understanding industry trends! -  Dorien M., Social Media Marketing Consultant

Pricing: plans start at $99/month or $990/year.

#2. Dash Social: for an all-in-one solution for social media management and competitor research

Dash Social is a social media management platform that provides a wealth of capabilities for large and enterprise-level businesses across various industries.

Dash Social offers a wide range of features, including predictive content performance capabilities, social media analytics for monitoring your own performance, campaign and influencer management features, and more.

Features available:

• Predictive AI/analytics that give you insights into how it thinks your content will perform.
• Social media analytics to measure your own online presence.
• Campaign management features to easily report on your marketing campaigns across different channels.
• Influencer management that makes partnering with creators a breeze.
• A single social inbox that makes it easy to manage your online community.

Pros:

• Dash Social helps with many aspects of social media management.

Cons:

• Dash Social has a lack of in-depth analytics that other tools (like Socialinsider) offer.
• The tool is extremely expensive compared to others on the market.

Reviews:

There are many features I love about this Dash Social, such as multi-platform scheduling, the ability to easily tag and filter comments and messages, the competitor overview, the easy ability to duplicate posts to other platforms, and the library function to easily find and organize UGC. I also love the saved replies feature in the community. - Meagan S, Community Manager

Pricing: plans start at $499/month.

Competitive analysis tools for social media monitoring and listening

Monitoring conversations around social media is an important part of understanding customer sentiment around your brand, your competitors’ brands, and your industry.

The right social listening competitor analysis tools can help you track specific keywords within your industry, like:

• Your brand name;
• Your product/service names;
• Your competitors’ brand names;
• Your industry name;
• Relevant keywords/topics within your industry.

Learn more about the best two competitive analysis tools for social media monitoring and listening below.

#3. Mentionlytics: for deep competitor intelligence through social listening and highly accurate analyses

Mentionlytics is an all-in-one social listening platform that combines brand monitoring features with competitor analysis capabilities to help users gain insights into their competition and overall market.  

With Mentionlytics, users can track their competitors' performance on social media and the entire web, evaluate competitive strategies to find weak spots, and make data-driven decisions.

Features available:

• Competitor tracking to gather your competitors' mentions and gain insights into their online performance.
• Share of Voice so you can measure where your brand stands against your competition in the online space.
• AI Social Intelligence Advisor (SIA) offering a glimpse into competitor activities and performance (such as best hashtags they use, top websites they’ve been featured in, and more).
• Customizable competitor analysis reports to have all actionable information in one place and draw conclusions.
• Real-time alerts for new mentions and sudden spikes for your competitors’ keywords.

Pros:

• A straightforward interface that lets you keep track of all your competitors across different social media and the web without data overload.
• Free 14-day trial to test the tool and see if it fits your needs.

Cons:

• Mastering some advanced features may take some time for social listening beginners.

Reviews:

“Mentionlytics is my digital Swiss Army Knife. It's a lifesaver when it comes to brand monitoring, making it feel like I've got a team of data detectives at my disposal 24/7.” - Chaque R., Marketing Manager

Pricing: Plans start at $58/month (billed annually).

#4. Brand24: for real-time brand monitoring and social media sentiment analysis

Brand24 is an AI-powered social listening tool that gives users access to conversations all across the web—from social media and news publications to blogs, podcasts, and reviews.

Users will input the brand names or keywords they want to track, and Brand24’s AI assistant will compile a list that also includes the level of sentiment (positive, negative, or neutral) that each mention seems to hold.

Features available:

• Brand reach and sentiment analysis so you can see how your target audience feels about your brand.
• Real-time customized alerts that let you get ahead of potential reputation crises.
• Personalized competitor analysis reports so you can easily see how your reputation stands against your competitors.
• AI brand assistant that helps you find even more relevant data.
• Access to key metrics like share of voice, reach, sentiment, and more.

Pros:

• Your dashboard gives you an at-a-glance summary of your brand’s overall mentions, reach, interactions, and positive/negative reactions across the web.
• Easily start tracking real-time conversations in your industry so you stay ahead of the curve.

Cons:

• Plans are built around the number of keywords you can track, so with the lowest tiered plan ($199/month), you can only track 3 keywords (i.e., your brand and two competitors).

Reviews:

As a marketer, staying on top of online conversations and brand mentions is crucial, and Brand24 has proven to be an invaluable tool for this purpose. I also love the real-time monitoring and great customer success. - Roxana M., Head of Marketing

Pricing: plans start at $199/month or $1,788/year

#5. Brandwatch: for advanced social listening and AI-driven consumer insights

Brandwatch has a suite of tools that help brands to better manage their social media presence.

Consumer intelligence capabilities provide insights into your target audience, social media management tools let you create and share content while engaging with your followers, and influencer marketing features give you the ability to partner with creators to expand your reach.

Brandwatch boasts that its monitoring tools let brands get ahead of trends in their industry, monitor potential threats from over 100 million different online sources, and monitor key listening metrics like share of voice, conversation volume, reposts, mentions, and more.

Features available:

• Consumer research that helps you get a better understanding of your target market.
• Sentiment analysis so you know how your audience feels about certain keywords related to your industry.
• Mention monitoring for your brand and your competitors.
• Influencer campaign management to make partnerships easier.

Pros:

• Brandwatch offers both social media monitoring and performance analytics for your brand versus your competitors.

Cons:

• Its three suites are considered separate entities, meaning you have to sign up for each one individually if you want access to multiple features

Reviews:

Brandwatch has significantly enhanced our understanding of market trends, customer sentiment, and competitive landscape. The visualization tools and customizable dashboards make it easy to derive actionable insights, helping us make informed business decisions. - Amber D., Marketing Communications Manager

Pricing: Request a demo for pricing information.

Competitive analysis tools for SEO & content strategy evaluation

Next, let’s dive into tools that will let you compare your website and content marketing strategy to that of your competitors. This involves looking at data like keywords you’re ranking for versus keywords your competitors are ranking for, website traffic, domain authority, and more.

Understanding your competitors’ SEO and content strategy will help you find more keywords to create content around, potentially boosting your website traffic, reach, and brand awareness. These two tools are perfect for comparing your SEO and content to your competitors.

#6. Similarweb: for competitor traffic benchmarking and audience insights

Similarweb is a website intelligence tool that lets you insert any URL (i.e., your own as well as your competitors’) into the text box to get insights like website visits, traffic-driving channels, top keywords driving traffic, referring domains, backlinks, and more.

You can also compare keywords to see which ones are more effective for yourself and your competitors. Plus, get industry benchmarking data to see how your website performance is stacking up against others.

Features available:

• SEO tools to help you track keyword ranks, find new keywords to target, and audit your site for better optimization
• Ad, app, sales, and shopping intelligence tools to further boost your growth.
• Competitive analysis tools that let you benchmark website traffic against your industry.
• Advanced dashboards and reports that let you seamlessly share your findings with your team.

Pros:

• Although the tool isn’t cheap, its features are incredibly valuable.
• The data is refreshed daily to ensure you’re always seeing the most up-to-date information.

Cons:

• Each of its intelligence suites (i.e., Web Intelligence versus App Intelligence versus Sales Intelligence) is sold separately, so signing up for multiple can be expensive

Reviews:

I like that Similarweb provides comprehensive insights into website traffic and performance, allowing for detailed competitor analysis and market trends. - Prakash R, Senior Executive

Pricing: plans start at $199/month or $1,500/year.

#7. Semrush: for competitors' SEO strategies analysis, including keyword gaps and backlink status

Semrush is an SEO and content marketing tool that helps brands find keywords, track rankings, optimize their websites, and compare their websites to their competitors.

Semrush also offers a few free tools, including an SEO tool that lets you check website authority, keyword ranks, SERPs, and keyword search volume. So while you’ll need to sign up to get in-depth analysis, some of their basic features are available completely for free.

Features available:

• Keyword research so you can find the best keywords for your website to rank (as well as which ones your competitors are already ranking for).
• Competitor analysis capabilities that let you benchmark your website performance and search rankings against others in your industry.
• SEO tools that help you optimize your website to maximize search rankings.
• Content distribution and link-building features that help you boost your website's authority.

Pros:

• Semrush is one of the best-known SEO tools, boosting its reputation and credibility.
• Get access to free SEO tools that can help you increase your website traffic before you decide to sign up.

Cons:

• Semrush offers a lot of additional capabilities, like trend spotting, social media management, and local SEO, but each one is a separate additional cost per month, which can add up quickly.

Reviews:

An incredible depth of data for SEO. The keyword research, competitor analysis, and site audit tools are especially useful for refining strategy and improving rankings. The interface is intuitive, and the reporting features help track progress effectively. - Muhannad S., Digital Marketing Manager

Pricing: plans start at $139.99/month or $1,407.96/year.

PPC competitor analysis tools

If you’re running PPC campaigns, you want to make sure that your ads are going to be competitive for the top spots, regardless of the medium you’re running them. And to do that, you need to get eyes on your competitors’ ads as well, on the keywords they’re targeting, and more.

To help you keep tabs on your competitor campaigns, we’ve put together two of the top PPC competitor analysis tools and how each one can help you.

#8. SpyFu: for analyzing competitors’ past PPC campaigns, ad copy, and bids

SpyFu is essentially an ad spy software, making it possible for brands to see how others in their industry are running their ad campaigns.

The platform has data dating all the way back to 2010, giving users insights into anything a domain has done—keyword rankings, ads, backlinks, and more—for the past decade and a half.

This is incredibly helpful information for brands looking to capitalize on PPC advertising, but want to know how their competitors have fared first.

Understanding how competitors are advertising helps you find the right keywords, create the right ad copy, and choose the right placements that will make the biggest impact for your own brand.

Features available:

• SEO insights that provide details like backlinking strategies, keyword ranking history, and top pages.
• PPC tools that let you discover competitors’ keywords and ads so you can stand up against their strategies.
• Keyword buy recommendations and Google Ads templates to boost your ad results.
• Competitive intelligence tools that give you key insights on everything your competitors have done over the years.

Pros:

• SpyFu is a thorough platform that provides a ton of insight surrounding your competitors’ online presence like rank history, keywords targeting, ads run, and more.

Cons:

• SpyFu doesn’t provide details on search intent for its keywords, so users have to do their own additional research to make sure their content fits.

Reviews:

I love the amount of details SpyFu offers as an insight into your specific competitors, including whether or not they are using Google Ads down to what specific keywords they are bidding on and images of the specific ads they are using, when available.” - Joe K., Digital Campaign Manager.

Pricing: plans start at $39/month or $399/year.

#9. Adthena: for AI-driven PPC insights on rivals’ spend, keywords, and market share

Adthena is an AI-led search intelligence platform that can help brands find all kinds of PPC-related information on their competitors. The tool offers a number of features that help its users gain a keen understanding of the search market landscape, how their competitors are doing, and how they can stand out.

The platform also offers market share analysis reports across different industries to help brands get an even better idea of what the landscape looks like before they dive into their own ad campaigns.

Features available:

• Monitoring tools that give users insights into market trends, market share, search terms to rank for, and competitor activity
• Ad copy insights that help you create copy that will stand out in search results.

Pros:

• Gather a ton of useful information surrounding your industry’s PPC advertising so your brand can stay ahead of the curve.

Cons:

• Pricing details aren’t transparent, so you have to request a quote and talk to the sales team before you’re able to get information on cost.

Reviews:

Great insights to find who your competitors are on relevant search terms on Google Ads. You can also see what ads your competitor creates as well. - Michael C., Search Engine Marketing Strategist

Pricing: request a custom quote based on your specific needs.

Competitor analysis tools for market intelligence

Market intelligence refers to the practice of collecting and analyzing data and information surrounding your brand’s market or industry. This information might include trends, competitive data, audience insights, and more.

Having your thumb on the pulse of your market can be a huge help when it comes to effectively competing with top brands in your industry. These tools can play a role in gathering as much information about your industry as you can.

#10. Owler: for monitoring competitors’ business updates and market positioning

Owler offers company and industry insights that let you see information like acquisitions, funding, revenue, employees, CEO details, and more. The platform has a number of free profiles so you can do a quick perusal of your competitor data, but the paid tool offers even more insights.

Owler also lets users set up alerts so they can get real-time updates if anything changes with their competitors or industry. The tool offers a free version that lets users follow the closest five companies, but the paid version gives you unlimited access to even more companies and details.

Features available:

• Company profiles that provide insights into the health of your competitors’ brands.
• A daily snapshot email that sends updates on your select competitors.

Pros:

• Owler has access to more than 20 million company profiles, ensuring that you should get the competitive data you’re looking for.

Cons:

• Some users have claimed that Owler’s data is inaccurate or outdated at times

Reviews:

It's very easy to operate, it gives you all the basic information about the company's revenue, funding and size, you just search the name and it pops up. Anyone can get used to its user-friendly interface in a couple of days.- Mozin S., Market Research Analyst

Pricing: free forever plan for up to five competitors. Paid plans start at $468/year.

#11. Crayon: for real-time competitive intelligence, monitoring rivals’ marketing and sales strategies

Crayon is a competitive intelligence software platform that focuses on providing your sales team with key data about competitors as well as other things like sales enablement content.

The point of Crayon’s data is to help your sales team feel empowered by the knowledge that they know all of your competitors’ next moves.

Knowing what your competitors have going on is a sales tactic on its own, and Crayon’s tool can easily compile high-priority insights in a daily digest email that sends to all your salespeople.

Features available:

• Real-time competitor intelligence tools that help you to discover information like website changes, pricing updates, job openings, press releases, and more.
• Daily summary emails that keep your sales team completely up-to-date.
• The ability to create things like battlecards, announcements, newsletters, and other sales enablement content.

Pros:

• Get access to all changes and updates from your competitors, even “before” and “after” glimpses at website updates or redesigns

Cons:

• Pricing isn't mentioned, so you have to request a demo and speak to a salesperson to learn what the cost might be

Reviews:

​Crayon offers extensive market insights that help us stay ahead of industry trends and understand our competitors’ strategies. This is invaluable for strategic planning and decision-making. We are able to create detailed, up-to-date battlecards that equip our business development team with key information needed to effectively compete in our market. -  Rita L., Marketing Director

Pricing: request a demo to get pricing information.

Competitor analysis tools for pricing & product intelligence

The last sector of competitor analysis tools we’re going to look at have to do with pricing and product intelligence. This type of competitive analysis helps you with two things:

• Making sure your product is competitive, meaning it has enough features or capabilities to compete with others in your industry.
• Making sure you have a price point that makes sense for your industry and the product you have to offer.

Essentially, these tools will help you take a look at your competitors’ pricing strategies so you don’t go into your own pricing blindly. Learn more about how these tools can help.

#12. Prisync: for tracking competitors’ pricing strategies and dynamic price changes.

Prisync is a price tracking and monitoring tool that lets you put all of your competitors into a single dashboard, making it easy to gauge what everyone in your industry is charging for their products or services.

With Prisync, you can also monitor competitor pricing to make sure you’re updated on any major pricing changes so that you can always remain competitive with your own pricing structure.

Features available:

• Price updates, history, and positioning analysis to give you insights on how your competitors have historically priced their products.
• Daily email reporting so you’re constantly in the know about price changes.

Pros:

• Automate your own price changes based on your competitors, making sure you stay ahead of the curve.

Cons:

• Pricing is based on the number of products you need to track, which can be inflexible for some businesses.

Reviews:

Very useful software. We use everyday automated reports about price changes among our business competitors. - Jan S., Director of a Small Business

Pricing: plans start at $99/month.

#13. Kompyte: for tracking all competitor updates across product, pricing, and more

Kompyte is a competitive intelligence platform that provides you with competitor updates at scale. Easily input your closest competitors and watch as updates come in about things like price changes, product launches, press releases, job openings, and so much more.

Features available:

• Automated tracking for updates across competitor websites, social media profiles, reviews, ads, and more.
• AI filters that help you get the most pertinent information from your competitors.
• Battlecard templates that help your sales team close more deals by highlighting your company’s differentiators.

Pros:

• Get the full scope of what your competitors are doing every step of the way.

Cons:

• A lot of Kompyte’s data is centered around larger competitors in an industry, meaning some smaller competitors aren’t always included or up-to-date.

Reviews:

The email alerts allow me to get a regular look into what our competitors are doing without having to do manual research or even log into the platform. Makes it easy to forward to others not in the platform as well. - Anthony B., Digital Marketing Manager

Pricing: request pricing information based on your needs.

Final thoughts

Competitive analysis tools are vital for businesses to stay ahead in today's dynamic market. These tools provide actionable insights into competitors' strategies, helping businesses refine their marketing across SEO, social media, and PPC.

For social media strategists, these insights are crucial for optimizing content, engagement, and overall social media presence to outpace competitors.

Tools like Socialinsider offer benchmarks and campaign analysis, giving companies a clear view of their industry positioning. By leveraging these tools, businesses can stay agile, adapt to market trends, and drive long-term success.

FAQs about competitive analysis tools

How to analyze competitors?

To analyze competitors effectively, first identify key players in your industry through market research or keyword searches. Then use competitor analysis tools tailored to your needs, such as analyzing their website's performance or social media data.

What tool is best for competitive analysis?

The best tool for competitive analysis depends on your specific needs. For a comprehensive view of website traffic, content performance, and SEO strategies, Ahrefs is an excellent choice. It provides insights into competitors' top-performing pages, keyword rankings, and referral sources, making it ideal for marketers aiming to refine their strategies based on real-time data.

For social media competitor analysis, Socialinsider is highly effective. It offers benchmarks and campaign analysis, allowing you to see how your social media performance stacks up against competitors. Its detailed insights into engagement rates, content pillars, and follower growth make it a top tool for optimizing social media strategies.