Hey there! Welcome back to Marketing Qualified. Here’s what we’re diving into today…
How to reverse engineer a competitor’s funnel. Simple step-by-step instructions.
The bar is low. Your marketing is probably better than you think it is.
👷♀️ How to reverse engineer a competitor’s funnel.
It’s helpful to know what your competition is up to.
The goal isn’t to copy them but to analyze what’s working and what’s failing so you can make more informed decisions for yourself.
Follow these steps to look under the hood of your competition’s marketing funnel.
1) Check out the ads.
Head over to Meta ads library and ads transparency on Google.
Look up your competitor’s page.
Check out the copy and creatives that you see. What’s good about them? What could be improved?
Especially pay attention to any ads that have been running for a long time. Chances are they’re working well, or else the company would have turned them off by now.
2) Enter the funnel.
Now click on the ads and see what landing pages you end up on.
Use a spam email address to complete their forms.
Keep an eye on your inbox over the next several weeks and save the emails they send you.
3) Analyze the funnel.
Study all the content you come in contact with.
What are they saying on their landing pages? How are they designed?
What do they include on their thank you pages after a form completion?
What email subject lines are they using? How often do they send? What’s the content of the emails?
4) Check out the tech stack.
Go to BuiltWith and enter your competitor’s website.
This lets you see what tools they’re using on their website. Discover things like their ESP, CRM, which automation tools they use, and how they’re tracking analytics.
5) Check out the analytics
Look up their website on SimilarWeb. This lets you see estimated web traffic as well as sources and audience engagement metrics.
6) Check out the SEO strategy.
Look up their website on a keyword research tool like SEMrush or Ahrefs.
See which keywords they’re ranking for and targeting with their content strategy.
7) Pulling it all together.
Now take everything you’ve learned and put it together.
Reminder: the goal is not to copy your competition. You should almost never change your strategy based on what a competitor is doing.
Instead focus on asking yourself questions. For example:
Is something they’re doing pulling attention away from you? How could you combat that?
Notice if there are things they’re doing that you’re not. Why aren’t you doing them?
Where are they struggling? How can you avoid that?
Where are they succeeding? Could you put your own spin on something and enhance it in the future?
Take your answers to these questions and use them to inform future decisions.
📰 In the news this week.
🪄 Marketers are turning to old tricks.
💰 How to create an SEO budget for max ROI.
🔎 Examining the data practices of social media & streaming services.
👕 Corporate swag will never die.
👥 How to choose the right bid strategy for lead gen campaigns.
⬇️ The bar is low.
Marketing is constantly changing. New mediums emerge. Best practices evolve. Channel effectiveness fluctuates.
This volatility leads many marketers to feel imposter syndrome from time to time.
But when the imposter syndrome kicks in, remind yourself of this important thing:
The bar for marketing in the B2B space has fallen extremely low.
Most B2B brands still choose to:
Hide their pricing.
Shamelessly copy the competition.
Claim to be the “best” or “number one” with no evidence to back it up.
Obsess over ROI for every single activity.
Ignore customer feedback.
Choose keywords based on volume, not intent.
Focus on ideas instead of execution.
Give up on channels after one failed testing period.
Treat all marketing as direct marketing.
Focus on tasks instead of strategy.
Aggressively and constantly pitch instead of adding value.
Interrupt and invade people’s privacy.
Take shortcuts with design to save costs.
Confuse marketing with advertising.
Use poor AI for customer service.
Rely too much on gated content.
As we said, the bar is basically on the floor.
And therein lies the opportunity for you! Don’t fall into these traps.
Be strategic. Be creative. Focus on providing value.
You don’t have to have everything figured out all the time. But if you focus on small but continuous improvements, you’ll easily leave the B2B competition in the dust.
😂 Marketing meme of the week.
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