Have you ever wondered where your competitors are getting their traffic?
Exactly which keywords their ranking for in Google?
Who their top joint venture partners are?
Where they’re placing paid advertising?
Over the years I’ve wondered that as well.
Like being a fly-on-the-wall to your competitors private conversations.
But the cool part is – you no longer have to wonder.
With today’s technology – you can spy on your competitors with X-Ray vision. With just a few tools you will be privy to a host of juicy info.
You just have to know where to look 😉
And in this article I’m revealing 13 super cool ninja
tricks for spying on your competitors.
So put on your spy glasses!
And let’s dive in…
1. Moat.com – This unique search engine makes it easy to find out what type of banners your competitors are running across the web.
See exactly what sort of ads are being run by AppSumo, Groupon,
Disney, Apple, Netflix, and thousands of other brands.
I love going here to get inspiration and ideas on how to design our own banner ads and creatives.
Plus, Moat will also tell you where that ad was last seen – giving you additional intelligence on where to place your own banner ads.
Lots of competitive intelligence and marketing goodness…
2. SocialAdNinja – Here’s another competitive intelligence tool that will allow you to spy on your competitors.
SocialAdNinja contains over 400,000+ Facebook advertisements.
Find out exactly which ads are performing best on Facebook.
What sort of images their testing, their exact landing page,
and how long the ad has been live.
This is a treasure chest for anyone who is doing Facebook Marketing.
And I’ve personally found Facebook to be one of the BEST places to grow your audience in almost any market.
3. SEMRush.com – Find out exactly which keywords your competitors are ranking for in the search engines.
If you’re doing ANY sort of SEO – this by far my favorite intelligence tool for untapping new traffic sources. (opportunities)
Plus, SEMRush also allows you to spy on your competitors PPC ads.
Find out exactly which keywords their bidding on, how much they’re
paying, the exact ad copy their using, and much more.
4. WayBack Machine – Roll back the hands of time with this nifty little tool. Find out what your competitors site looked like in the past.
This free tool reveals YEARS of split-testing data.
Basically, this website allows you to see what your competitors websites look like over time.
Here are some interesting examples to look at:
http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://www.womenapproachyou.com (Check out how their squeeze page has changed over the years. Priceless data.)
http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/truthaboutabs.com
http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://fatburningfurnace.com
http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/golfswingguru.com
5. DomainTools.com – Find out who owns a particular website and how to contact them. This is an invaluable tool for contacting potential affiliates.
6. WhoIsHostingthis.com – Nifty little tool to find out who is hosting any website online.
7. WhatWPThemeIsThat.com – Have you ever been to a website and wondered what WordPress theme they were using? This site will show you exactly which theme they’re using along with which plugins they have installed. Pretty cool.
8. BuiltWith.com – Find out what sort of technology your competitors are using. Server information. Hosting provider. Analytics tools. Content Delivery Networks. Advertising Partners. And much, much more.
9. SocialMention.com – This tools is similar to Google Alerts but made specifically for social media. Get free daily updates on any mentions made about you, your competitors, their products, and more.
This is a great place to monitor your own social mentions. Plus, it’s a really cool place to search for where your competitor is being mentioned online. This opens up hundreds of new opportunities and places for you to build relationships, recruit affiliates, share content, and much more.
10. Fireshot
Here’s a cool tool I use to build my swipe file. It’s a nifty little Firefox plugin that allows you to take a screenshot of any website online.
It’s perfect for capturing sales letters, upsell pages, emails,
squeeze pages, and more.
11. WhosMailingWhat.com – This spy tool allows you to instantly find out what sort of direct mail pieces your competitors are sending out.
You’ll see the exact mailing packages that other companies have
mailed so you can learn from their tests and direct mail controls!
I bet the CIA doesn’t even have competitive intel like this.
Inside the Who’s Mailing What Archive you get access to the world’s largest library of direct mail (packed with information on over 256,804+ packages) in nearly 200 categories.
If you’re doing any offline marketing at all, then this is like the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones.
The email inbox has become quite crowded in recent years. All of our snap whiz technology has actually made it quite an exciting experience to get a ‘real’ letter in the mail.
It’s a huge opportunity for any online marketer who is only using email.
Combine you’re online marketing with some offline marketing. Postcards, letters and direct mail pieces can add some extra zeros to your bottom line.
Plus, it’s a super easy way to stand out from your competitors.
12. Copernic Tracker – Keep a close eye on your competitors with Copernic.
Find out exactly when your competitors make a change to their
landing page, squeeze page, or sales page?
That way, you’ll know exactly when they’re testing a new headline, design, offer, etc…
Pretty cool huh? 😉
13. Flippa.com – I’ve saved the best for last 🙂
Flippa.com is the largest marketplace online for buying
and selling websites.
But here’s where the cool part comes in…
Whenever someone is selling their website – that’s when
they’re MOST willing to give you gobbles of information
about exactly how they’re making money and driving
traffic to their website.
Pretty cool.
This is one of the best places to go to see proven business
models in action. If you browse the different auctions you’ll
also often get access to their Google Analytics, top keywords,
Adsense Revenue, and much more.
It’s a virtual treasure trove of ‘what’s working now’.
I see a lot of marketers struggling to make money online and
spending thousands of dollars on courses to learn how to
build a business when they could in fact go to Flippa.com
and BUY a business that’s already making money.
And it would cost a whole lot less than the amount of money
they’ve invested in products and courses.
My motto is to ‘learn by doing’.
That’s how you build a successful business.