The Ultimate Guide To Competitive Intelligence Tools : What You Need To Know

Competitive intelligence has always been one of the most important aspects in a company's overall success, and it is no wonder that there are many tools available to help companies of all shapes and sizes.

What should you look for when trying to decide which competitive intelligence tools to choose? How can you use these tools effectively?

What are some successful examples of companies who have used these tools? This blog post will go over competitive intelligence tools and the respective list in detail:

Competitive intelligence Tools:

Competitive intelligence tools enable businesses to track, research, and analyse competitors.

They're also used to measure the potential of new markets and industries, determine how a company is positioned in a market or industry, identify opportunities in a specific sector, and gain an idea of how customers are reacting to your company.

Competitive intelligence tools are very useful when a business creates new products or services, expands into new markets, or launches a new product line.

Some of the most popular competitive intelligence applications include: Competitive intelligence software is a computer program that tracks and monitors information about competitors.

It allows businesses to find out who they are competing against. The computer software monitors what other companies are doing and tries to predict future decisions.

Many companies use this type of software to uncover evolving trends in their industry , to identify potential threats and opportunities, and to make strategic decisions.

The more sophisticated the software, the better it is at telling you what other companies are doing and why.

Competitive intelligence software is a computer program that tracks and monitors information about competitors.

It allows businesses to find out who they are competing against. The computer software monitors what other companies are doing and tries to predict future decisions.

Many companies use this type of software to uncover evolving trends in their, to identify potential threats and opportunities, and to make strategic decisions.

The more sophisticated the software, the better it is at telling you what other companies are doing and why.

There are different varieties of competitive intelligence software, but they all work in the same basic way.

They gather information about their competitors and analyze that information to make predictions about what will happen next.

Benefits of Competitive Intelligence Tools:

• In order to stay ahead, companies need to find innovative new ways of competing. One way they can do this is by utilizing the power of competitive intelligence.
• Competitive intelligence tools help companies in many different places within their organization and are considered a vital tool in today's business world.
• Competitive intelligence tools can help companies by providing them with a platform from which they can stand against their competitors.
• With this information, companies are able to make decisions on what they are doing wrong and what they are doing right.
• This can help them improve their overall strategy. Competitive intelligence tools also allow companies to monitor their competitors, which allows them to decide whether or not to retain a supplier.
• This allows companies to know who is selling the same product and who is not.
• Companies should also be able to know who is doing well in the market, which can help them decide on what they need to do to become more competitive .
• Companies should also be able to track their competitors, which allows them to easily understand what others are doing.
• With this information, companies can determine if they will be able to compete with them. In today’s competitive market, having a competitive edge is necessary.
• The ability to track one’s competition can be essential in knowing how far one can go. This information can help companies know what all they need to do to stay in the game.
• When tracking one’s competition, one can track whether the competition is successful or not.
• The information gained from tracking one’s competition can help companies determine how to better their company.

List of competitive intelligence tools:

1) Crunchbase:

The Crunchbase platform is one of the most important tools in the world of competitive intelligence. It brings together many different sources for a single report on a company.

Features include:

• Research connected companies quickly and easily
• Locate competitors and industry leaders
• Connect with investors and other executives
• Studies every company accurately, even when they

Pros of Crunchbase:

• It can be used by the novice and expert alike.
• The tool is simple to use, while still giving the user all the information he or she needs.
• The information can also be integrated into other reports, such as company analysis, financial reports and stock charts .
• Crunchbase is always accurate and up to date, with the most recent data available at all times.

Cons of Crunchbase:

• It can also be difficult to set up in some instances.

2) Ahrefs:

Ahrefs is one of the most powerful and easy-to-use competitive intelligence tools available. The website allows you to find keywords, competitors, and check backlinks.

It also provides a number of additional features such as SEO profiles, rank tracking and keyword suggestions.

Features include:

• Full-text query.
• 100,000+ backlinks database.
• 24/7 customer support.
• Website analysis.
• Competitor keyword research.
• Domain mapping.

Pros of Ahrefs:

• Querying backlinks.
• SEO profiles.
• Keyword suggestion tool.

Cons of Ahrefs:

• The software sometimes has a lag when you're using it.
• Very expensive compared to other tools.

3) Owletter:

Owletter is an online platform that enables you to access and interact with marketing trends and statistics.

The platform offers a variety of different tools, such as the social media rankings, the B2B Market Insights, or the Marketing Forecaster.

As a free tool, it promises to be useful for small businesses that don't have unlimited resources for competitive intelligence studies.

At the same time, it is also considered a software that requires a large investment.

Features include:

• free and comprehensive analysis of statistics
• access to a vast database of marketing trends
• integration with third-party tools.

Pros of Owletter:

• Great features and functionality for a free software

Cons of Owletter:

• The platform requires a large investment and a regular investment.

4) Wappalyzer:

The Wappalyzer is a tool that allows companies to check out what their competitors are doing on the web.

It shows how many mentions and shares each competitor has received from various different websites.

This makes it easy to know what a competitor's strategy is and where they have started to generate interest.

Because targets are not limited to only one website, the user can see what kind of reach each competitor has achieved on various different websites.

Features include:

• Scan multiple sites
• View competitor's Facebook posts
• Compare with similar competitors
• Download post to Desktop

Pros of Wappalyzer:

• Provides a quick and easy tool for marketers to plot out the competition's social media strategy.
• Gives competitors a way to see what you're doing, and where you're starting to grow.
• Provides marketers with a tool to see how their competitors are growing on social media, allowing them to plan better strategies.

Cons of Wappalyzer:

• Some users have reported they are unable to search through multiple sites, this is due to a technical limitation of the software .

5) Similarweb:

Similarweb is a tool that determines the market share and traffic of websites, as well as their conversion rate.

We can use similarweb to find out which website is doing best in our niche, which keywords have the most traffic, or what the most popular posts are on our website.

Similarweb will give you a good idea of your site’s true traffic, as well as what keywords are driving the most traffic to it.

Features include:

• The online tool demonstrates the traffic, competition and major competitors of a website.
• It will tell you what search terms people are using to find your site.
• Shows the income generated by each keyword.
• Shows the percentage of traffic driven by a specific keyword
• Also shows where your website ranks for specific keywords.

Pros of Similarweb:

• It is a very useful tool. If you are not familiar with the basics of how search engines work, then this tool will be of great help to you.
• It is easy to use and its interface is very simple.
• It shows all the information in a clear fashion, which makes it easy for anyone to understand.
• The information it provides is accurate and reliable, which makes it one of the best tools.

Cons of Similarweb:

• You need a high speed internet connection to use this tool.
• It will not show you the keywords that are popular in your niche.

6) Hootsuite:

Hootsuite is one of the most popular social media management tools on the market.

It allows users to post content across multiple platforms, send out push notifications and monitor posts to see what's working best.

Hootsuite can be used for purposes ranging from public relations to product marketing.

It can be used to build and promote your brand on various social media platforms.

It allows you to simply monitor the posts that you've made across multiple platforms to see what's working, what's not and where you can make improvements.

Features include:

• Multiple social media platforms
• Create & share content
• Send out push notifications for mentions, likes and reposts
• Monitor your social media posts.

Pros of Hootsuite:

• Consistent monitoring across all social media platforms
• Track your posts and analytics
• Hit-markers for marketing
• Export to CSV file
• Share with other people
• Simple, easy to use interface

Cons of Hootsuite:

• Limited number of social media platforms (although they are improving on this) and it's not free.

7) Visualping:

Visualping is a great tool for competitive intelligence data. What makes it unique is that it lets you create interactive infographics and dashboards where you can share the information with your team and clients.

Features include:

• Support for Excel Statistics and OLAP queries
• Visualping adds the data you choose to the spreadsheet, creating a new cell with the relevant information.

Pros of Visualping:

• Visualping has been highly rated by users. It is great for visualizing data on a larger scale and can quickly create infographics without needing to download large file sizes.
• It’s easy to use and easy to learn, just drag and drop data onto the sheet.
• Visualping works with Excel and Power BI.
• You can access your data from the web or from a desktop computer, tablet or mobile phone.

Cons of Visualping:

• Visualping is still growing, and it may not be as advanced at some of the other tools.
• It’s also less flexible than some other programs.

Conclusion:

With the current era of digitalization, there is a need to have competitive intelligence tools to keep up with the competition and stay ahead of them.

There are many types of competitive intelligence tools used by companies in different industries.

In this article, we have discussed about the importance of having these tools as well as what they are used for.

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