Question

Topic: Advertising/PR

Can I Find Where My Competitors Are Advertising?

Posted by Anonymous on 11/29/2010 at 6:07 PM ET 250 Points
We are a small university that competes with some gigantic for profit universities that evidently advertise everywhere. Is there any way to find out where they advertise on the web?
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  • Posted on 11/30/2010 at 9:38 AM Author
    Thanks to both Phil and WMMA! I was afraid that was the answer. It just seemed that a few years ago, I ran across an article that talked about a specific website that allowed you to type in a company's name and you would find out which portals, websites, etc. they were currently being shown on. I may have been dreaming.

    My big problem is that we compete nationwide because we both have online programs so there is not necessarily a region or city to do a simple check. For example, they show up on the Kansas City Star website. How many other city specific websites do they show up on? If they are on more then how did they do that in an efficient and cost effective manner?

    A little background ... one of our faculty was offered a position by one of these competitors and in the interview found out that "supposedly" they had seen a 1500% increase in enrollment in a product we both have. Now the faculty member wants to know why we are not showing the same increase. That faculty member does not want to accept the fact that the competitor is literally about 50 times bigger than we are.
  • Posted by bill.hoelzel on 11/30/2010 at 1:33 PM Accepted
    I just discovered www.alexa.com, which tracks other websites. It's free.

    Just go to alexa.com, go to the TAB marked "Site Info," and enter the website you want to see.

    On the next page, click on "GET DETAILS" next to the website's name.

    Then on the DETAILS page, go down the RIGHTHAND column to the box marked "High Impact Search Queries for WEBSITE."

    Click on the link at the end of that box -- "View the Complete Search Analytics."

    About halfway down that "Complete" page, you'll see a table containing about 30 words that are the "High Impact Search Queries for WEBSITE."

    Click on each term to see two things:

    1. LEFT SIDE -- "Sites Receiving the Most Traffic from this Query"

    2. RIGHT SIDE -- "Top Advertisers for this Query"

    You can see who wants to appear on the search RESULTS page for that term (advertisers), and what "organic results" users are choosing ("Sites receiving the most traffic from this query").

    You can do this kind of analysis to see results for both YOUR website and your COMPETITORS' websites. But this kind of analysis does require examining results for 30 different query terms on two sites -- so you'll be doing a lot of clicking and copying and pasting to see what's really going on.

    If you find an easier way to see who's using search terms that are relavant to YOUR website, please let me know. Good luck!

  • Posted by darcy.moen on 11/30/2010 at 8:27 PM Accepted
    you can use services such as:

    Keyword Spy to find out what your online competition is up to, what they are spending, and what they are bidding.

    https://affiliateprogram.keywordspy.com/n/RbfVvq1BAAMHNkMAAAbGQgAAYZJmMQA-A...

    I hope this helps you.

    Darcy
    Customer Loyalty Network

  • Posted by darcy.moen on 12/1/2010 at 2:11 PM Member
    And here is a link to another service that I've used that is excellent, called Spyfu:

    https://www.shareasale.com/r.cfm?b=100730&u=476638&m=14754&urll...

  • Posted by Markitek on 12/3/2010 at 5:09 PM Accepted
    Jeez...two seconds, this search

    track print advertising competitors

    and I came up with a a lot of companies that track print and online
  • Posted on 12/6/2010 at 4:05 AM Accepted
    For a quick look at their online advertising presence try SEMrush or Spyfu.com
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