How and Why You Need to Use Competitor Monitoring

What is Competitor Monitoring?

Competitor monitoring is an important industry tool, with its market projections expected to grow from $41.2 million to $82 million by 2027. But why is competitive monitoring, also known as competitive monitoring, so valuable?

Competitor monitoring allows you to track a competitor’s performance and gather competitive intelligence. You can assess how competitors succeed or explore why they might not. 

Everything from marketing efforts and acquisitions to the public reception of new products can be monitored. Since competitor movements of all kinds directly affect your business, it’s critical to plan ahead and use the information you gather strategically to better your position.

Below, we’ll explore which competitors to track, what data points to consider, and several strategies to employ when monitoring competitors. 

What is a Competitor Analysis, and How is it Different?

Before we move on, let’s briefly discuss competitor analysis and its relation to competitive monitoring.

We can think of competitive analysis as a direct examination of a competitor’s business strategy. Competitor analysis tools help gather measurable real-time metrics and provide a better understanding of your current market share. 

Competitor monitoring tools, meanwhile, feed this process, observing top competitors’ performances and supplying the data needed for analysis. 

Which Competitors Should You be Monitoring? 

 Identifying which companies to monitor can be hard when there are thousands to consider.

To distinguish which business you should and shouldn’t pay attention to, you must first figure out who offers equal or similar value as your business does. 

Two types of competitors fall under this category: 

Direct Competitors

A direct competitor is any company that sells similar or the same products and services as you.

Think Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa—both market to the same consumers. As a result, potential customers will compare competitors’ products and weigh their selling points before making a purchase. 

Monitoring these kinds of competitors is crucial. To stand out, your business needs to understand where and how your competitors are not meeting customer needs, and what can be done to fill this gap. 

Indirect Competitors

Indirect competitors sell different products and services but satisfy the same need or solve the same problem as you.

Their target audience has the same goals, and their business usually has similar price points.

Monitoring indirect competitors offers another perspective of your industry. What they’re selling, how, and why are all great points to explore when considering new business opportunities or refining current practices. 

4 Data Points to Track With Competitor Monitoring 

The data gathered from competitor monitoring can yield essential insights.

By utilizing this data and adjusting benchmarks accordingly, sales and marketing teams can learn how to compete directly and differentiate your products or services from others on the market. 

To help you get started, we’ve put together a list of competitor data points to focus on: 

1. Recent Acquisitions and Investments in New Technology

Monitoring your competitors’ activities offers valuable insight into their company objectives.

New technology brings new opportunities, indicating areas of interest your business may not have considered before. Likewise, an acquisition is a positive sign of expansion and new functionality.

You and your team can research what the acquired company brings to the table and how this intel might benefit their current processes. 

2. Who the Board Members and Investors Are

Your competitors’ board members and investors are at the heart of significant business decisions. Learn more about them to understand your competitors’ goals better.

For example, what would a new investor say about the company’s future? Does an exchange of hands indicate major internal changes at all levels of industry or possibly the beginning of new development in an unrealized project?

You can piece together this information using platforms like Owler Max to find essential data on company leaders.

3. Information About Most Recent Funding 

Staying up-to-date on your competitors’ funding gives you a good idea of their current capabilities.

While you can’t get a behind-the-scenes glimpse into their playbook, you can assess how likely they are to grow in the future and where this funding might be directed.

Competitive intelligence tools such as Owler keep you in the know, updating you on financial growth and allowing you to search for companies according to revenue. 

4. News or Media Mentions

How your competitors are talked about can say a lot about their performance. Public reception might inform your marking team on whether to push new content or sharpen your current approach. You can even look at your competitors’ unique content strategies and how they might be affecting consumer sentiments on social media.

Owler also tracks company news on a real-time feed and delivers critical updates on all your competitors to ensure you never miss out on this information.

3 Strategies to Improve Competitor Monitoring 

Regardless of how many competitors you choose to target, it’ll be easier to make sense of the data if you gather information strategically. 

Here are 3 essential strategies you can use to improve the process:

Use Owler Max to Track Company News About Competitors 

Manually tracking and finding information on competitors will easily weigh down your team, especially if you have many companies to consider. 

Owler Max simplifies the process by curating company data for you. Our extensive network of company profiles provides accurate datasets and regular updates on the companies you care about. You’ll be notified of any breaking news on our real-time feed and catch up on anything you might’ve missed with our Daily Snapshot.  

Our Owler Community plan is free, so you can get a head start on competitive intelligence today! 

Use Google Alerts 

Google Alerts is a simple and free monitoring tool. By tracking your competitors’ keywords, you can monitor organic search results, the type of content they’re producing, the digital marketing campaigns they’re deploying, and what kind of traffic your competitors’ websites are trying to encourage. 

You’ll receive notifications whenever the search engine finds new results that match your desired terms. (This also works as an SEO tool!)

Track Social Media Activity

You should also monitor your competitor’s social media platforms. In addition to social listening, monitoring a competitor’s content gives you a good idea of what their content marketing strategies might be. 

For example, what kind of hashtags are they using? If they’re partnering with influencers, what new market are they trying to reach? Questions like these will help you get a read on their social media management and what your team can do to refine current tactics. 

(Owler’s company profiles also incorporate companies’ social media handles, so you’ll be able to quickly assess their activity while researching other data.)

Join Owler Max and Simplify Your Competitor Monitoring Process 

To understand what you’re up against in your industry, you need the right competitor monitoring tools. Without them, you risk inaccurate information and missed growth opportunities. 

Owler Max makes sure you never waste time on useless intelligence. Delivering real-time data sourced from an extensive network of 14 million businesses, Owler simplifies competitor monitoring with daily updates and comprehensive datasets on your biggest competitors.

Sign up for a free Owler Community plan today or reach out to learn more about our special intelligence-gathering features, exclusive for teams!