Outperforming your competition is the ultimate goal of any business. We know it’s yours too. Why else would you be here looking for competitor analysis tools, right?

It is fair to say that there are many types of competitor analysis tools, each offering unique solutions. Ergo, we will discuss them all, albeit only the best ones.

We will be starting with the types, but if you want to jump straight to the tools, click here.

7 Types of Competitor Analysis Tools

In general, there are about 10 types available, but for core competitor research, only 7 of them matter. The following are those tools and their main use cases.

1. SEO Analysis Tools

Use Cases – Keyword and backlink research, site audits, competitor analysis.

Who is this for – Businesses looking to improve their search engine rankings and website performance.

SEO analysis tools are designed to help businesses improve their online visibility. They offer businesses insights into optimizing their websites for search engines and monitoring their effectiveness.

Example: Ahrefs, SEMrsuh, and Moz

2. Market Analysis Tools

Use Cases – Conduct surveys, Analyze the market, and Understand customer behavior.

Who is this for – Companies looking to understand market dynamics and identify opportunities.

These competitor analysis tools offer businesses insights into market and industry trends and competitive analysis. Businesses can then make informed decisions and build better strategies to win over their customers.

Example: Statista, SurveySparrow

3. Social Media Monitoring Tools

Use Cases – Monitor brand mentions, track competitor’s social media activities, and analyze social media metrics.

Who is this for – Brands aiming to take their social media strategy to the next level.

These tools help brands track and analyze their social media presence, engagement, and performance. The fact that they can analyze the social media activities of competitors makes it a valuable one for brands.

Example: Brand24, Hootsuite

4. Product & Pricing Analysis

Use Cases – Product research, Competitive pricing analysis, and identify market trends.

Who is this for – eCommerce and retailers looking to stay competitive in pricing and optimize their products.

If you want to optimize your product for the better and implement the best possible pricing, try these tools. They help businesses monitor competitor pricing, optimize pricing strategies, and even track product performance.

Example: Prisync, SurveySparrow

5. Content Analysis Tools

Use Cases – Track content trends, analyze competitor content strategies, and identify opportunities for content improvement.

Who is this for – Digital marketing or Content marketing agencies looking to enhance their content strategies.

The main aim of using these tools is to understand what competitors are doing and find opportunities for content improvement. Businesses can also measure content performance and identify popular topics to work on.

Example: Buzzsumo, SEMrush

6. PPC Analysis Tools

Use Cases – Monitor competitor ad spend, analyze PPC campaigns, and track ad placements.

Who is this for – Businesses looking to enhance their advertising efforts and gain a competitive edge.

Advertising analysis tools help businesses analyze ongoing PPC campaigns, including their performance. They provide insights into competitor’s ad campaigns and keyword strategies.

Example: SpyFu, SEMrush

7. Email Marketing Analysis Tools

Use Cases – Competitor email strategies, Campaign performance.

Who is this for – Agencies looking to optimize their email marketing efforts and performance.

These tools help businesses track and analyze their email marketing campaigns. Businesses can monitor email open rates, CTR, campaign performance, and competitor strategies.

Example: Owletter

With the types of competitor analysis tools finished, let’s look into the top tools available in the market.

10 Best Competitor Analysis Tools for Businesses

The following are 10 tools for competitor analysis that we shortlisted from a list of 30. Since each tool takes a unique approach to analysis, carefully evaluate each and choose the best fit for your business.

1. SurveySparrow – Best for market, product, and customer research and analysis
2. Ahrefs – Best for keyword research, backlinking, and competitor analysis
3. Social Sprout – Best for social media research and analysis
4. Prisync – Best for competitive pricing analysis
5. SEMrush – Best for content and SEO analysis
6. Statista – Best for market analysis
7. Adbeat – Best for competitor ad analysis and research
8. Buzzsumo – Best for content analysis
9. SpyFu – Best for PPC competitor analysis
10. Owletter – Best for email marketing analysis

Let’s discuss them in detail!

1. SurveySparrow

✓ Free Version

14-Day Free Trial

G2 Rating: 4.4 (5)

Use it for: Product and market research & analysis

SurveySparrow is a survey tool when used correctly, can be the best one for competitor analysis. With tailored surveys focused on your competitor’s users, you can get feedback on –

• Why did they choose them?
• What are the key features they use?
• What’s missing in your competitor’s offerings?
• And more

You can further understand customer engagement, market trends, and customer expectations. Here, try out our competitive analysis survey and see how helpful it can be.

Competitor Research Survey Template

Preview Template

Use This Template

That’s not it. SurveySparrow can do wonders for those who are looking to develop successful products. With appropriate surveys, you can learn market demands, validate your product idea, and even collect ideas.

Furthermore, you can benchmark your business with your competitors by calculating NPS® and CSAT scores. This way, you strive forward to a customer-centric approach that outperforms your competitors.

Helpful Features

✓ Customer sentiment analysis

✓ NPS®, CSAT, & CES surveys

✓ Competitive analysis surveys

✓ Online reputation management

Pricing: The paid plans start from $19 per month when billed annually.

2. Ahrefs

No Free Version

7-Day Free Trial

G2 Rating: 4.5 (5)

Use it for: Keyword research, Backlinks analysis, and competitor analysis

Ahrefs is a popular and one of the top SEO tools used by organizations across the globe. The tool is well-known for its ability to find keyword and backlink gaps between competitors. This can help you with building an SEO strategy to perform well where your competitors aren’t.

Its Site Explorer feature lets you analyze your competitor’s website to unearth their SEO strategies. Based on the opportunities available you can make an informed decision for strategizing.

Helpful Features

✓ Keyword Explorer

✓ Content Explorer

✓ Site Explorer

✓ Site Audit

Pricing: Lite is their starting paid plan, and they charge $120 per month for it.

3. Sprout Social

No Free Version

30-Day Free Trial

G2 Rating: 4.4 (5)

Use it for: Social listening and Social media analysis

Sprout Social is mainly used by businesses to streamline their social media efforts. But you can also use it for competitor analysis. With its social listening feature, you can basically track mentions about your competitors. This customer perception of competitors can give you an idea about their strengths and weaknesses.

Social benchmarking is another feature you can use to compare your performance with competitors. Measure and compare key metrics like follower growth, engagement rate, and content performance with your competitors.

Helpful Features

✓ Campaign analysis

✓ Trend analysis

✓ Engagement analysis

✓ Customer behavior analysis

Pricing: The pricing is based on per seat (user), and it starts at $199 per month for one user.

4. Prisync

No Free Version

14-Day Free Trial

G2 Rating: 4.7 (5)

Use it for: Competitive product pricing analysis

Confused about how to assign a pricetag for your product, Prisync is the right tool for it. It allows you to track and monitor product pricing of your competitors and provide insights on the best possible pricing for yours.

Moreover, market needs are bound to change and so will the pricing. Prisync allows you to keep track of this and do necessary changes when the time comes.

Helpful Features

✓ Marketplace data tracking

✓ Stock availability tracking

✓ Product variant pricing analysis

✓ Unlimited competitor tracking and analysis

Pricing: The pricing is based number of products. The start pricing is $99 per month for upto 100 products.

5. SEMrush

✓ Free Version

14-Day Free Trial

G2 Rating: 4.5 (5)

Use it for: Content and SEO analysis

SEMrush is undoubtedly the best tool for content and SEO analysis. Like Ahrefs, SEMrush also allows you to do proper competitor analysis to find keyword and backlink gaps. You can compare up to five competitors at once.

Also, based on your website keywords and all, SEMrush will find potential organic competitors for your website.

Another main reason why this is a great competitor analysis tool is because of its Market Explorer. It’s new feature introduced by the tool to do comprehensive market analysis.

Helpful Features

✓ Competitor analysis

✓ Market Explorer

✓ Ad launch assistant

✓ EyeOn (Competitor monitoring tool)

Pricing: Their PRO plan starts at $129.95 per month.

6. Statista

✓ Free Version

No Free Trial

G2 Rating: Nil

Use it for: Market and consumer research

If you are looking for a data-focused competitor analysis tool, Statista is the one to choose. Even though it’s expensive, it can provide you with numbers that no others can.

The tool employs regular and in-depth research and can provide you with the research data you want. Be it your competitors or your users, it will have quantifiable data to help you.

Helpful Features

✓ Consumer and brand reports

✓ Market insights

✓ Company insights

✓ eCommerce insights

Pricing: The pricing is very expensive, starting from $549 per month for a business account.

7. Adbeat

✓ Free Version

14-Day Free Trial

G2 Rating: 4.1 (5)

Use it for: Monitor and analyze competitor ad strategies

This competitor analysis tool is specifically designed for monitoring competitor ad strategies. It consolidates data from various sources and gives you a clear idea of your competitors’ approach to ad marketing.

The tool goes further to analyze visual and textual elements in ad marketing to let you know what’s working and what’s not. Also, you can compare your ad spending with your competitors.

Helpful Features

✓ Ad spending analysis

✓ Creative analysis

✓ Competitive monitoring

✓ Campaign analysis

Pricing: The pricing starts at $249 per month.

8. Buzzsumo

✓ Free Version

30-Day Free Trial

G2 Rating: 4.5 (5)

Use it for: Content analysis and finding influencers

Buzzsumo is a content analysis tool that helps you understand the topics that resonate with your audience. It also helps you see what’s working for your competitors, thereby finding gaps or opportunities for you to triumph.

It can also help you compare social media metrics with competitors and find influencers working with them. This will allow you to make a data-driven decision to improve your content efforts.

Helpful Features

✓ Content monitoring

✓ Competitor research

✓ Find influencers

✓ Trend analysis

Pricing: The starting paid plan is “Content Creation,” which costs $199 per month for one user.

9. SpyFu

✓ Free Version

No Free Trial

G2 Rating: 4.6 (5)

Use it for: SEO and PPC analysis

If you ask any SEO professional about their opinion of SpyFu, they will say unanimously that it’s one of the best competitor analysis tools. However, the tool is better at analyzing PPC campaigns.

It can provide you with detailed reports about your competitors’ PPC campaigns. This includes but is not limited to, ad copy, budget estimates, and keyword bidding strategies.

Helpful Features

✓ SEO competitive analysis

✓ PPC campaign analysis

✓ Backlink analysis

✓ Ad History

Pricing: Their basic paid plan starts from $39 per month.

10. Owletter

No Free Version

14-Day Free Trial

G2 Rating: Nil

Use it for: Email marketing analysis

Unlike other competitor analysis tools, Owletter stays unique with its approach to emails. It can automatically capture and analyze your competitor’s emails. With email marketing being a key channel to build relationships, this tool can be very helpful.

Initially, it will capture all the emails from a given website. Then, it takes screenshots of it, stores it, and analyzes it, alerting you if it’s important.

Helpful Features

✓ Competitor email analytics

✓ Email collection and monitoring

✓ Campaign analysis

✓ Template and design analysis

Pricing: For $19, you can monitor up to 10 websites in a month with Owletter.

How to Choose Competitor Analysis Tools

With so many options available, it can be a daunting task to choose the right one for your business. But don’t worry. We are here to help you with this.

The key is understanding what you want the tool to do. So, start by asking the following questions –

• Why are you doing the competitor analysis?
• What do you want to achieve with the tool?

The answers to these questions will define your objective. Once that’s done, move on to shortlist the tools that offer features for it.

Carefully scrutinize each tool and understand its efficiency and effectiveness. For this, you can use the tool’s free version, trial, or demo. Avoid such tools that are just a waste of time.

Now you have a list of tolls that offer features you want and are very good. Now comes the key factor – budget. Evaluate and see which all fall within your budget and choose that tool for competitive analysis.

Et voila!

If you are looking for competitor analysis tools for understanding the competition, market, and customer, we suggest SurveySparrow.

Use the following to sign up for free and try the tool for yourself!

Kate Williams

Content Marketer at SurveySparrow