When looking for ways to get an edge over your competitors, Google Analytics competitor analysis might not be the first item that comes to mind. After all, what’s GA for if not all about your website, right? But here’s the catch—when you cleverly leverage Google Analytics tools and insights, you can unearth valuable intel about the competition. But most importantly, craft a winning strategy.
Any business that wants to dominate its niche industry has no choice but to utilize the power of Google Analytics. With competition broadening every second, you can’t miss out on integrating the powerful features that Google Analysis has to offer to stay ahead of the competition. Analyzing competition helps you understand the trends, identify existing opportunities, and refine your strategies.
What’s the Role of Google Analytics in Competitor Benchmarking?
Competitor benchmarking is the secret to understanding what your competitor is into, and Google Analytics is one of the best tools available to gauge your website’s performance against the competition. It offers a wealth of data about user behavior, source of traffic, and overall site performance. When you harness this data, you can identify the important metrics that reveal your site’s performance against the competition.
You can leverage GA’s Benchmarking Reports to compare metrics such as session durations, bounce rates, and traffic sources against other businesses within your niche. And that’s how you get a solid idea of where you stand.
For instance, if you learn that your organic traffic is trailing behind the industry norms, it’s a signal that you need to improve your SEO game. Take note though, GA won’t spill all the secrets of your competitor, but it offers the context required to identify weaknesses, strengths, and growth opportunities.
Leverage Google Analytics to Track Your Competitors
A practical way to implement Google Analytics in tracking your competitors is to perform strategic analysis. Kickstart this process by identifying who your primary competitors are and then use GA to track their activities. This would also require you to create custom alerts so you are notified when important changes happen in your competitors’ engagement metrics.
Make use of Behavior Flow and Content reports to identify the most popular pages on your competitor websites. Then analyze the engagement metrics and user flow to pinpoint the specific areas your competitor excels in and where they’re trailing behind. Armed with this information you can refine your user experience optimization and content strategy above that of your competitors.
How to Conduct Competitor Analysis with Google Analytics
Knowing your competitor isn’t just a great idea; it’s survival 101. Competitor analysis helps you identify gaps in the market that you can fill, understand what’s working for others so you can replicate or outdo it, and learn what not to do.
Here are the steps to run a competitor analysis Google Analytics project:
Step 1: Keep Tabs on Referral Traffic
Google Analytics referral traffic report is a treasure chest for competitor insights. Analyzing the source of your site’s traffic allows you to identify potential competitors who may be vying for the same audience as you. Here’s how to do it:
- Go to AcquisitionàAll TrafficàReferrals in your Google Analytics dashboard.
- Look for the referring domains and pinpoint the sites that overlap with your niche.
Let’s say for example a forum or blog sent traffic to you. There’s a chance that it’s doing the same for your competitors. With this knowledge, you can identify opportunities for collaborations or places to flex your ad budget.
Step 2: Benchmarking Reports
The Benchmarking feature on GA is more like peeking over your neighbor’s fence—except it’s all legit. It allows you to compare the performance metrics of your site against the industry averages. Here’s how you can use it:
- On your GA account, navigate to AudienceàBenchmarking.
- Select your industry, geographic region, and company size to receive customized insights.
- Compare your performance with the industry standards to identify the areas in which your competition may be outshining you.
For example, if you have a higher bounce rate than the industry average, it could be an indicator that your competitors have a stickier website.
Step 3: Analyze Search Traffic
Your business is most likely fishing in the same SEO pond as competitors. So, while GA can’t show competitors’ data directly, you can analyze search trends and sources of traffic to get a sense of their strategies.
When you integrate GA with Google Search Console, you can:
- Identify the best-performing keywords that are driving the most traffic to your website.
- Analyze those keywords to identify the ones that are likely targeted by your competitors.
- Craft better content around those keywords and outrank them.
Always bear in mind that winning in search isn’t just about ranking your website high; it’s also about offering value that your competitors probably overlook.
Step 4: Social Media Insights
You cannot afford to disregard social media when doing Google Analytics competitor analysis. Social media referral traffic in GA is a goldmine for any business that’s serious about competitor analysis. If you’ve noticed traffic increases from certain social media platforms, there’s a high chance your competitors are also riding the same wave.
Here’s how to gain more competitor social media insights from GA:
- Head to AcquisitionàSocialàOverview in your Google Analytics account.
- Identify the social platforms that are driving the most traffic.
- Analyze the posting patterns, ad campaigns, and engagement tactics from your competitors on those particular platforms.
This information is useful for refining your own strategy and ensuring your social media presence remains competitive or even steals the show.
Step 5: Audience Interests
Capturing audience interest is another way to ensure your business gains a competitive edge against competition. In your GA, go to AudienceàInterestsàOverview to access insights into your audience affinities, in-market segments, and top interests. This is important not only for tailoring your campaign but is also an opportunity to discover what excites your competitors’ audiences.
Let’s say your audience shows more interest in “tech gadgets.” When you dig deeper, you can identify the tech-related trends or topics that your competitors might be using to attract your potential clients.
Step 6: Competitor Ads and Landing Pages
With Google Analytics, you can see the paid campaigns driving more traffic to your site. This gives you an idea of how competitors within your niche might be targeting their ads. This strategy might need you to combine third-party tools, such as SpyFu or SEMrush with GA to reverse engineer your competitors’ strategies.
After identifying your competitor’s landing pages, ask yourself the following questions:
- What’s in their CTA?
- How does the landing page design compare to yours?
- What value are they offering that you might have missed out in your landing page?
This analysis approach can help you make changes to your paid campaigns and landing pages to achieve better outcomes.
Step 7: Identify Gaps and Opportunities
Google Analytics’ Behavior Flow is the secret weapon when it comes to spotting gaps. Simply analyze the paths taken by users through your entire site, then compare their behavior to what your competitors are doing. Do you see any blog topics, features, or product categories that your competitors have that you don’t?
For example, if your visitors frequently drop off after browsing a particular page, it probably lacks the depth or the CTA that your competitors offer. Make use of this insight to make improvements to your strategy.
Additional SaaS Tools to Boost Your Google Analytics Competitor Analysis
Earlier, we mentioned that you can add tools such as SpyFu and SEMrush to your Google Analytics competitor analysis. Doing this gives you complementary insights and a rounded view of your competition’s strategies.
- SEMrush: SEMrush is powerful for uncovering the keyword strategies, backlink profiles, and paid ad efforts of your competitors.
- SpyFu: If you want to spy on what your competitor is doing with their keywords and PPC campaigns, use SpyFu.
- BuzzSumo: BuzzSumo is effective at helping you spot your competitor’s social media engagement, the most shared content, and trending topics.
- SimilarWeb: SimilarWeb gives you a wider perspective on the audience interests, engagement metrics, and website traffic of your competition.
- Ahrefs: Ahrefs can help you explore the backlink profiles, content strategies, and organic search performance of your competition.
Google Analytics Dashboards: Your Competitive Advantage
For a seamless competitor analysis using GA, you need your dashboard to prioritize displaying the metrics that matter to you. A customizable Google Analytics dashboard compiles key metrics such as bounce rates, traffic sources, and conversion paths into a single visually digestible view.
Even though GA doesn’t reveal competitor data directly, a properly customized dashboard lets you spot patterns, track benchmarks, and monitor performance gaps against industry standards. To truly tap into the power of GA dashboards, you need an expertly tailored setup that resonates with your goals.
This is where Eaglytics Co. comes in. With our professionally customized GA dashboards, you get access to actional insights that empower you to outshine competitors and stay ahead in your niche. Partner with Eaglytics today and let us build you a competitor analysis setup that brings you closer to achieving your goals.
Final Thoughts
Google Analytics competitor analysis might not hand you all the answers you seek on a silver platter. However, it offers a powerful way through actionable insights to outsmart your competitors. When you combine these insights with a bit of creativity (and maybe a sidekick tool or two), you gain an edge over your rivals.
Ready to take your competitor analysis a notch higher? Partner up with a data analytics expert to help you build custom GA dashboards tailored to match your business objectives. Eaglytics can help you turn your data into industry dominance.
