Competitive intelligence software allows businesses to track, collect, store, and analyze information about their competitors.
As a marketing manager, you might often wonder what strategies your competitors use to make their campaigns successful, right? What do their campaigns have that yours don't? Brainstorming and guesswork can only get you so far.
So what exactly can help you eliminate guesswork, delve deep into competitor analysis, and find valuable and actionable insights? Competitive intelligence software is the answer. Competitive intelligence software tools help not only analyze your competitors’ performance but also understand the market to identify the types of marketing campaigns that work the most among your target audiences.
To help you make the right software choice, we’ve listed the nine best competitive intelligence software based on two parameters: user ratings and popularity. Each parameter is weighed and scaled to a value between 1 and 50.
User ratings: This parameter considers the overall user ratings of products based on reviews written in the last 24 months. Users rate products on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest).
Popularity: This parameter considers the average monthly search volume for a standardized set of keywords for each product, as derived by a proprietary search methodology, as well as the position of the vendor’s domain on the search engine results page (SERP) for each keyword. It’s a measure of user interest and relevance used as a proxy for popularity.
Note: Products are listed in descending order of their total scores—i.e., summation of user ratings and popularity scores. If two or more products have the same score, they are listed alphabetically. (Read how we selected these products.)
1. Semrush: Offers website conversion tracking
User rating: 50/50
Popularity score: 47/50
Semrush is an all-in-one marketing and competitive intelligence platform.
The software helps discover market trends and tracks the market strategies used by your competitors to offer insights into their campaigns. It analyzes your market to identify hidden opportunities, such as audience gaps, and also forecasts platform-based advertising reach.
You can benchmark your website traffic against competitors’ and see where you currently stand. With keyword analysis, you can discover your organic competitors, find which keywords they use, and optimize your website pages with those target keywords to reach more audiences.
Semrush is a web-based tool that offers chat, email, and phone support.
Key Features
- Activity dashboard
- Alerts/notifications
- Audit management
- Campaign analytics
- Competitive analysis
- Conversion tracking
Trial/Free Version
- Free Trial
- Free Version
Starting price
Device compatibility
Screenshots
Analyzing market traffic in Semrush
2. Hootsuite: Tracks keyword-based online conversations
User rating: 46/50
Popularity score: 50/50
Hootsuite is a social media monitoring and competitive intelligence tool for marketers and social media teams.
It helps monitor social media and website traffic, set up custom monitoring streams on trending topics, and strategize your marketing campaigns using the gathered data insights. You can search for online conversations on any topic or keyword and filter the data by date, demographics, and location to understand the perception of your brand in the market.
The software integrates with multiple third-party social listening tools and centralizes all your data onto one dashboard. Based on the competitive insights the tool offers, you can modify your marketing and communication efforts to better engage with your audience and enhance your brand image online.
Hootsuite offers chat, email, and phone support. It’s a web-based tool and also has a mobile app for Android and iOS devices.
Key Features
- A/B testing
- Activity dashboard
- Audience targeting
- Automated publishing
- Brand tracking
- Campaign management
Trial/Free Version
- Free Trial
- Free Version
Starting price
Device compatibility
Screenshots
Social media monitoring in Hootsuite
3. Ahrefs: Analyzes backlink quality for websites
User rating: 50/50
Popularity score: 45/50
Ahrefs is an SEO and competitor analysis tool for digital marketers.
The software provides an in-depth look at organic search traffic for particular topics or keywords and analyzes websites and URLs for their backlink profile. This helps you identify which keywords your competitors rank for and which pages bring in the most traffic.
With the backlink checker feature, you can see which websites link to your competitors' websites and understand the quality of their backlink profiles. In addition, you can find out whether your competitors are spending on paid search traffic and the keywords they are bidding on.
Ahrefs is a web-based tool that offers chat, email, and phone support.
Key Features
- A/B testing
- Audit management
- Competitive analysis
- Keyword rank tracking
- Keyword research tools
- Localization automation
Trial/Free Version
- Free Trial
- Free Version
Starting price
Device compatibility
Screenshots
Site explorer dashboard in Ahrefs
4. Sprout Social: Compares website content to find engagement gaps
User rating: 47/50
Popularity score: 46/50
Sprout Social is a social media management and competitor research tool for marketers.
It helps uncover critical customer, competitor, and industry insights through website and traffic analysis, allowing you to strategize your campaigns to get better-qualified traffic with higher conversion rates.
You can measure content performance on your website and social media and compare it with your competitors' websites. You can integrate all your social profiles to get a complete overview on a centralized dashboard. You can also filter historical data and benchmark results.
The software analyzes audience engagement and creates detailed reports that you and your team can use to strategize and design future marketing and social media campaigns.
Sprout Social offers chat, email, and phone support. It’s a web-based tool and also has a mobile app for Android and iOS devices.
Key Features
- Automated publishing
- Brand tracking
- Campaign management
- Competitive analysis
- Competitor monitoring
- Customer engagement
Trial/Free Version
- Free Trial
- Free Version
Starting price
Device compatibility
Screenshots
Analytics in Sprout Social
5. Birdeye: Captures customer reviews from multiple websites
User rating: 49/50
Popularity score: 40/50
Birdeye is a customer experience and lead generation platform for sales and marketing teams.
It tracks local SEO to measure your website's online performance in a specific region. Once it completes the analysis, it suggests the best ways to optimize your website and help it rank higher for targeted keywords.
The software also tracks each platform that your business is listed on, and its built-in messaging feature lets you reply to reviews and queries that customers leave on any social media platform, helping improve your online reputation and customer engagement.
Birdeye offers chat, email, and phone support. It’s a web-based tool and also has a mobile app for Android and iOS devices.
Key Features
- 2-way messaging
- Activity dashboard
- Audience targeting
- Augmented analytics
- Automated responses
- Benchmarking
Trial/Free Version
- Free Trial
- Free Version
Starting price
Device compatibility
Screenshots
Dashboard in Birdeye
6. Meltwater: Measures online brand sentiment
User rating: 46/50
Popularity score: 42/50
Meltwater is a social listening and market intelligence platform for marketing and sales teams.
It lets you monitor and analyze audience behavior on social media. It also allows you to benchmark your online campaign performance against your competitors’ and build data-driven strategies to outperform them.
It analyzes the competitive landscape in your industry, identifies your top competitors, and uses media monitoring to determine which brands resonate the most with your target audience. Using these audience insights, you can analyze customer segments and find hyper-targeted groups, including your competitors' customers.
You can also monitor online conversations and analyze audiences’ perception of your brand. Based on the competitive insights you receive, you can optimize your brand messaging and online customer engagement strategy.
Meltwater offers chat, email, and phone support. It’s a web-based tool and also has a mobile app for Android and iOS devices.
Key Features
- Audience targeting
- Automated publishing
- Benchmarking
- Campaign analytics
- Collaboration tools
- Communication management
Trial/Free Version
- Free Trial
- Free Version
Starting price
Device compatibility
Screenshots
Audience insights in Meltwater
7. Nozzle: Creates unlimited keyword buckets
User rating: 50/50
Popularity score: 35/50
Nozzle is a brand monitoring and competitive analysis tool for marketers.
It lets you track your competitors and captures market intelligence data such as estimated website traffic, market share, and brand mentions. It also tracks external blogs, PR releases on competitor websites, and guest posts on external domains to offer detailed comparisons between your and your competitors' content marketing strategy.
The scheduling feature allows you to split keyword monitoring into different buckets and focus more on crucial long-tail keywords over high-volume high-difficulty keywords. In addition, you can track user engagement on your website and analyze which devices your audiences use the most to interact with your content.
With multiple third-party integrations, you can easily migrate customer data and create reports showcasing the valuable insights you receive.
Nozzle is a web-based tool that offers chat and email support.
Key Features
- Competitive analysis
- Dashboard
- Data visualization
- Keyword rank tracking
- Peformance metrics
- SEO management
Trial/Free Version
- Free Trial
- Free Version
Starting price
Device compatibility
Screenshots
Dashboard in Nozzle
8. Qualtrics Core XM: Analyzes customer sentiment
User rating: 49/50
Popularity score: 22/50
Qualtrics CoreXM is a social listening and customer data aggregation tool for sales and marketing teams.
The software lets you collect customer feedback through surveys and website-deployable chatbots. It also analyzes online reviews on social media platforms to capture audience sentiment toward your brand.
You get access to a centralized dashboard that compiles all customer data and segments it based on date, user sentiment, and satisfaction rate. With a built-in artificial intelligence tool, you can automatically understand the attitude and topic in every piece of text feedback that customers leave. The software also tracks emerging industry trends and urgent issues and automatically triggers follow-up actions based on the data it gathers.
Qualtrics CoreXM offers chat, email, and phone support. It’s a web-based tool and also has a mobile app for Android and iOS devices.
Key Features
- Benchmarking
- Data import/export
- Data visualization
- Media analytics
- Panel management
- Qualitative comparative analysis
Trial/Free Version
- Free Trial
- Free Version
Starting price
Device compatibility
Screenshots
Reporting in Qualtrics CoreXM
9. Prisync: Provides predictive pricing model analysis
User rating: 47/50
Popularity score: 22/50
Prisync is a competitive intelligence platform that collects product and price data on your competitors.
It tracks product prices and stock availability and provides the latest market prices in your industry in a detailed report. You can use these findings to inform your pricing strategy and beat your competition by offering lower or comparable prices. The dynamic pricing feature automatically sets the price for your product or service and improves profit margins when market prices and stock availability change.
The software collects eCommerce competitor data within your industry. You can provide a list of competitors you wish to track and define the data points you wish to collect, such as pricing, reviews, and product catalog.
Prisync is a web-based tool that offers chat and email support.
Key Features
- Competitor price tracking
- Custom pricing rules
- Dynamic pricing
- Market data analytics
- Predictive pricing models
- Pricing analytics
Trial/Free Version
- Free Trial
- Free Version
Starting price
Device compatibility
Screenshots
Dashboard in Prisync
How to choose the best competitive intelligence software for your business
Here are some important considerations to keep in mind when buying competitive intelligence software:
Assess whether the software caters to your industry. An ideal solution should know the ins and outs of your industry and be able to provide crucial competitive data and insights that help optimize marketing and sales strategy. Therefore, ask vendors whether their competitive intelligence tool specializes in your industry.
Check the security parameters in place. When working with competitive intelligence data, the software handles sensitive business intelligence information. Look for security features such as data encryption, role-based data access, and multi-factor authentication to ensure the software protects your data against cyberattacks.
Assess the pricing structure. Some software vendors charge by the number of user seats you want, while others charge based on the number of competitors you track. Assess the pricing models that each vendor offers and choose one that caters to your needs within your budget.
Common questions to ask when choosing competitive intelligence software
These are some questions you can ask vendors when evaluating competitive intelligence software options:
Does your software offer customization?
Can you customize the type of data the software can capture for you? Can you create detailed custom reports on particular data points such as brand mentions or estimated reach on a specific social platform? These are some questions to ask vendors when choosing a product.
How updated is the data that your software gathers?
Working with old data can lead to inaccurate insights for your business, so it's always a good idea to ask vendors if their software updates data on a regular basis. If data tracking is automated, check how often the data gets updated (every week or month).
Does your software help track ROI?
An ideal competitor intelligence tool should track your business's historical performance and measure it against your current standing after using the software. When buying software, ask vendors if their software can provide detailed ROI reports since your business started using their product.
How did we choose these products? We didn’t—you did
To find your ideal software match, you need information you can trust—so you can save time, stay on budget, and focus more energy on growing your business. It’s why we vet and verify all our user reviews and recommend only the tools endorsed by people such as you.
In other words, our product recommendations are never bought or sold, or based on the opinion of a single individual—they’re chosen by your peers, reflecting the views and experiences of our independent base of software reviewers.