competitive intelligence analysis

Competitive Intelligence Analysis Found.a(on: Workshop: How to create a successful e-‐shop 20/2/2014

“Track your compe(tors and adjust your strategy” George Giannakeas Marke(ng and Product Director e-‐FOOD.gr george@e-‐food.gr @gioris

Competitive Intelligence Analysis All Slides are adopted from Avinash Kaushik’s post hQp://www.kaushik.net/avinash/compe((ve-‐intelligence-‐analysis-‐tools-‐metrics-‐reports-‐techniques/ During the presenta(on they are used to perform a live site centric analysis on the online shoe market in Greece (mainly the 2-‐3 biggest players) Note that only indica(ve screenshot are included

Good Guy Avinash

If you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred baQles... If you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single baQle.

CI data collection. The GOOD the Bad and the Useless! •  Toolbars • Panels •  ISP data •  search engines •  self reported •  scraped/indexed • Hybrid •  External •  voc

Founda'onal Concepts/Caveats.

Internal vs External sources

Professor F standing on the moon with a telescope and each (me he detects that someone's walking into your store, will press a buQon and record that entry.



Professor A standing at the “door” of your e-‐commerce site and every (me a customer walks in, he presses a buQon and records that entry. He may also ask for an ID



Don’t obsess about external data The numbers for you and your compe(tors will be roughly equally wrong Look at trends rather than actual numbers


Small sites are out-‐of-‐luck. >100,000 Unique Visitors month … mostly useless. Between 250k-‐500k Unique Visitors… decent more than 500k, to say 1 mil, is in a very good place. over 1.5 mil, you should start to see paQerns in the CI tool you see in your own analy(cs data.

Small countries are out-‐of-‐luck.


Site-centric CI vs. Ecosystem-centric CI. Site-‐centric analysis is primarily focused on looking at direct compe(tors, or adjacent ones, and learning from what is happening with Acquisi(on, Behavior and Outcomes on their website


Site-centric CI vs. Ecosystem-centric CI.

Ecosystem-‐centric analysis is primarily focused on what is happening in the industry, in the sub-‐category, the small or big niche that everyone's playing in.


Tools Used in this Experiment Vs Not Used

•  Similarweb •  Google Trends, •  Adwords Keyword And Display

Tools, •  Import.Io •  Seomoz •  Monitorbacklinks •  Facebook Insights •  Google Alert

• Compete, (Usa Only) • Hitwise, • Raven Tools, For Ecosystem-‐centric Analysis.

•  Comscore

Industry Analyzed

• hQp://www.spartoo.gr/ • hQp://www.myshoe.gr/ • hQp://www.cosmossport.gr/ • hQp://www.z-‐mall.gr/

Industry Analyzed

How much traffic your competitor gets?

Traffic Trends Key Metrics Analysis


How much traffic your competitor gets?

Compared this way?


This Way?


How about this way?


Tips

1.  Compare long-‐term performance between compe(tors •  Iden(fy surprising peaks and dips, look for reasons why (as in the spartoo display campaign)

2.  Create benchmarks you can use for providing important context when you look at your own performance.

3.  Iden(fy changes in your marke(ng mix/strategy. 4.  Look for surprising compe(tors suggested by these tools. Why are

you not worried about them?


Visitor/Audience Type Profile Analysis Once you know how traffic trends are playing out, and you want to crush your compe(tors, you are surely curious about what kind of people are visi(ng your website vs. theirs.

Visitor/Audience Type Profile Analysis


Demographic, Psychographic profiles.

Vs

Behavior


“I find behavior to be a million (mes more useful than demographics or poli(cal leanings. And I'm totally ignoring that demo/psycho data is deeply inferred and algorithmized. It is a lot less useful to know that 22 yr old, gay, African-‐American, republicans, who did not go to college, and have four children are 7% of the audience. It is a lot more useful to understand, this is what they search for, this is what they read, these are the sites they tend to visit.” Avinash Kaushik


Tips

1. Demographics and Psychographics : try to wean off this non-‐very-‐useful data. 2. Look for Audience Interests type data from your CI tool. Create hypotheses as to what this means for your content strategies on your own and rent digital plamorms. Structure tests to validate these hypotheses. 3. Iden(fy the impact on your display adver(sing campaigns. This will have direct implica(ons on your ad targe(ng, ad content and ad landing pages strategies.


Traffic Sources Competitive Analysis

Time to understand where visitors are coming from!

Traffic Sources Compe''ve Analysis

Incoming Traffic


Traffic Sources Competitive Analysis

1.  Make big picture recommenda(ons about changes to your company's owned, earned and paid marke(ng strategies.

2. Iden(fy tac(cal recommenda(ons for your display, rela(onship-‐building, and other such strategies. 3. This is much harder but try and figure out the implica(ons of the Outgoing sources list. Are people going to that list of sites because they did not get what they want from us, are we more expensive, is our internal search broken, do we have the world's worst checkout experience


“Most adver(sing and marke(ng strategies are based on what we see in Google Analy(cs, or what we feel might work. Both have value. Addi(onally use CI data. Use what's already working for your compe(tors. Avinash Kaushik


Search/Keyword Competitive Performance


Tips 1.  Create benchmarks for Overall and Paid search traffic paQerns of your

compe(tors to create new and improved goals –for your own macro search strategy.

2.  Change your head and long-‐tail SEO strategy (links, content, distribu(on) based on your analysis of not just Share of Search or Volume metrics for keywords, but using engagement/behavior metrics to ensure your target list is pure and refined gold.

3.  3. Iden(fy a very precise list of paid search keywords using both your paid compe(tors, and their most successful keywords. Ensure you include opportuni(es iden(fied by your current head-‐to-‐head death match with your top compe(tors.


Display Advertising Opportunity Analysis

Don’t Spray and pray!

Display Adver(sing Opportunity Analysis

Tips

1.  Quan(fy the implica(ons of the gaps in your current display strategy, or lack thereof.

2.  Create a specific and targeted list of categories and domains you should target influenced by where your compe(tors are (and where they might not be).

3.  If you want to get your company to use display adver(sing in a smarter manner, and not fall for old cheap tricks like View-‐Thrus, it is cri(cal that you understand Mul(-‐Channel AQribu(on Modeling and ensure that you are using both Assisted Conversions and Last-‐Click Conversions to measure success.

Display Adver(sing Opportunity Analysis

Social Strategy Effectiveness

Social Strategy Effec(veness

Tips 1. Iden(fy channels that are more effec(ve for your compe(tors. Contrast this with your strengths. Make re-‐alloca(on of people/money recommenda(ons to your leadership team. 2. Content analysis via use of the second report above is perhaps your bff in trying to change your leadership's mind to shir from shou(ng to conversa(on marke(ng on social channels. Deliver five specific social efforts that your compe(tors have rocked, that you could possibly emulate (or do one beQer). 3. If your data looks like above, you'll quickly realize that you are among the 99% that s(nk at using one of the best social channels on the planet for businesses: YouTube. Leverage my Reach, Build, Engage framework for YouTube and iden(fy current weakness in your strategy and recommend fixes.

Social Strategy Effec(veness

Tips

1. Provide a list of target countries where new opportuni(es exist (as iden(fied by your compe(tors). At the minimum, make recommenda(ons for decent sized experiments to validate profitability. 2. Do a liQle compe((ve intel of your own 3. If your CI tool provides City/DMA level informa(on, use that to be more precise about where to target your adver(sing in these new opportunity geographies.

Geographic World Domina(on Opportuni(es

Thank you George Giannakeas @gioris

competitive intelligence analysis

Data & Analytics