What Is Competitive Benchmarking? A Beginner's Guide

What Is Competitive Benchmarking?

Competitive benchmarking is the process of measuring your company’s show by comparing it to others successful your industry.

It helps you recognize your marketplace presumption and however you tin amended it.

To go a person successful your space, contention benchmarking is the archetypal step.

Before we dive deeper into the topic, let’s clarify however it differs from a akin process:

How Is Competitive Benchmarking Different from Competitive Analysis?

A competitive analysis (also called a rival analysis) involves thoroughly researching cardinal competitors to summation insights into their positioning, offerings, strengths, and weaknesses. 

The extremity is to place opportunities to amended your ain company's wide strategy.

Competitive benchmarking, connected the different hand, focuses connected comparing circumstantial metrics betwixt you and your competitors. Which includes things similar marketplace share, website traffic, societal media followers, keyword rankings, etc.

The extremity isn't to get a holistic knowing of the competition, but alternatively to measurement however you stack up connected cardinal metrics.

Why Is Competitive Benchmarking Important?

Competitive benchmarking is important for respective reasons:

• It gives you an nonsubjective presumption of wherever your concern stands successful the market. Without benchmarking, you lone person an interior perspective.
• It identifies your anemic spots and areas that request improvement. Benchmarking reveals wherever competitors are performing amended than you.
• It helps you acceptable strategical goals and show targets. The information gives you thing to purpose for.
• It informs amended decision-making. Benchmarking provides the facts you request to marque sound, strategical choices.
• It tracks your advancement implicit time. Regular benchmarking shows if you're advancing against the competition.

Now, let's get into the specifics of competitory benchmarking.

What Metrics Should You Look astatine for Competitive Benchmarking?

There are tons of metrics to see erstwhile conducting competitory benchmarking:

Market stock of postulation is the percent of postulation your website has successful a defined market.

It indicates however good you’re competing with different players successful your space. 

A precocious stock of postulation means you person a ascendant position. A debased stock means you person country to turn and seizure much of the market.

Here’s the look to cipher this metric:

Market stock of postulation = (your company’s postulation / marketplace traffic) x 100

Website Traffic by Channels

Website postulation by channels is the breakdown of postulation to your website coming from antithetic channels, specified arsenic integrated search, paid search, societal media, email, referral, etc.

Here’s what a study detailing visits from antithetic channels looks similar successful Google Analytics 4 (GA4):

It reflects however fashionable your website is successful your marketplace erstwhile you comparison it to your competitors’ postulation numbers.

Social media followers refers to the fig of radical who travel your marque connected societal media platforms similar Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and LinkedIn.

Having much followers than competitors signals you person stronger marque consciousness and affinity. And it means you’re apt to get much engagement.

Keyword Rankings

Keyword rankings are the positions that your website has successful the hunt results for circumstantial words oregon phrases.

They bespeak however disposable your website is successful hunt engines.

Higher keyword rankings mean you person amended visibility for applicable searches. Lower rankings mean opportunities to amended your SEO.

Share of voice (SoV) measures your brand's visibility crossed channels compared to your competitors.

It takes into relationship the full integer landscape—organic search, societal media mentions, property coverage, etc. 

A higher stock of dependable indicates that your marque is much prominently represented than your competitors.

How to Do Competitive Benchmarking (Step by Step)

Now that you cognize what circumstantial metrics you should absorption on, let’s locomotion done the benchmarking process.

1. Identify Your Competitors

Make a database of 3 to 5 nonstop competitors successful your industry. These should beryllium companies that connection precise akin products/services to your ain and people the aforesaid audiences.

For example, if you merchantability task absorption software, your competitors whitethorn see Asana, ClickUp, Smartsheet, etc.

If you’re unaware of who your competitors are, usage a instrumentality similar Domain Overview.

Enter your website URL and click “Search.”

Scroll down, and you’ll spot a database of your competitors successful the “Main Organic Competitors” section.

The adjacent measurement is to find your stock of the market’s web traffic. 

To bash this, usage Semrush’s Market Explorer tool.

Open the tool, click the “Find Competitors’ tab, participate your domain name, and click “Research a market.”

You’ll find estimated postulation stock percentages successful the “Share of Visits” conception successful the “Domain vs Market Dynamics” module.

In this example, Monday has a 9.35% stock of the market, Asana has 12.46%, Smartsheet has 7.63%, and Trello has 29.62%.

This gives you a benchmark to purpose for. If you privation to go the marketplace leader, you'll request to surpass Trello’s 29.62% share.

For this, you request to turn your website traffic. So absorption connected selling strategies similar search motor optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC).

3. Analyze Website Traffic by Channels

Next, dive into the circumstantial website postulation numbers for each selling channel.

To bash this, usage Semrush’s Traffic Analytics tool.

Open the tool, participate your competitors’ domain names, and click “Analyze.”

You tin scroll down successful the dashboard to spot the postulation sources breakdown, which shows the percent of postulation coming from antithetic channels, specified as:

• Direct: Visits from users who typed the website URL straight into their browsers oregon utilized a bookmark
• Referral: Visits from users who clicked a nexus connected different website
• Organic Search: Visits from users who came done hunt engines' integrated hunt results 
• Paid Search: Visits from users who came done hunt engines' paid hunt results

Now comparison this information with the GA4 information for your website. In GA4, spell to “Reports” > “Acquisition” > “Traffic acquisition.”

See however your postulation sources disagree from your competitors and whether determination are channels you mightiness privation to usage much heavily. 

Now, look astatine your and your competitors’ societal media followers crossed aggregate platforms to spot who has a bigger audience.

To bash this, usage the Social Tracker instrumentality (part of Semrush Social).

Once you configure the tool, it volition amusement the fig of followers oregon fans you person connected each societal media platform.

Compare your information side-by-side with your competitors’.

For example, you whitethorn find that your competitors person a larger assemblage than you connected a definite platform. Which means you whitethorn request to summation your scope and consciousness connected that platform. 

Read our social media management usher for tips connected however to acceptable yourself up for occurrence connected social.

5. Analyze Keyword Rankings

The adjacent measurement is to comparison your keyword rankings with your competitors to recognize wherever you basal successful presumption of SEO.

Use Semrush’s Position Tracking instrumentality to analyse keyword rankings.

Set up a project successful the tool. Then, spell to the “Overview” tab and click connected the “Add domain” drop-down to adhd your competitors 1 by one.

Then, navigate to the “Rankings Overview” table.

Here, you’ll spot your and your competitors’ mean ranking positions for the tracked keywords.

If you find that your competitors fertile higher than you for galore keywords, that means you astir apt request to rethink your SEO strategy.

We person a afloat usher connected creating an SEO strategy to assistance you get started.

Now, cheque your stock of dependable to spot however salient your marque is compared to the remainder of your market.

To bash this, you request to acceptable up tracking for your marque and your competitors utilizing Semrush’s Brand Monitoring app. (Get started with this setup guide.)

This app volition show mentions of your marque and your competitors crossed the web, including quality sites, blogs, forums, and societal media.

Then, spell to the “Analytics” tab successful the app and look astatine the SoV graph. This graph volition amusement you the percent of mentions that each marque has successful your market. You tin besides filter the graph by source.

This way, you tin get a holistic presumption of your SoV crossed antithetic channels and spot however it changed implicit time.

You tin besides cipher SoV for circumstantial selling channels.

This is the look for calculating SoV:

SoV = (your brand’s visibility connected a peculiar transmission / full visibility disposable connected that channel) x 100

For example, to find organic hunt SoV, you would disagreement the magnitude of postulation you get from applicable keywords by the combined monthly hunt measurement for those keywords. And aggregate by 100 to get a percentage.

Semrush’s Position Tracking instrumentality automatically reports this accusation to you:

After analyzing the data, you whitethorn find that your competitors person a higher SoV than you. But you tin overtake them by implementing a robust online selling strategy. 

Our digital selling guide tin assistance you with that.

Get Started with Competitive Benchmarking

There are intelligibly galore benefits of competitory benchmarking.

Overall, it gives you a clearer representation of your manufacture presumption truthful you tin marque the close moves to go a person successful your space.

So, get started by benchmarking yourself against your apical competitors. 

Semrush has a suite of tools that tin assistance you done the full process.