What Is Competitor Benchmarking? (& How To Do It)

When it comes to client campaigns, doing “good enough” just isn’t…. good enough.

After all, your client doesn’t run a business in some utopian world without competition. To really make an impact, your agency needs a strategic way to assess campaign performance and how it compares to others in the market. 

That’s where competitive benchmarking comes in. It’s a way to understand how clients compare to similar businesses, identify opportunities to improve, and recalibrate strategies when needed. It goes beyond campaigns in isolation, showing whether their efforts are truly yielding enough results.

Whether you’re troubleshooting a struggling campaign or helping a client maintain their market share, competitive benchmarking is the way to go. The outcome? Sharper insights, stronger marketing strategies, and results that keep your clients ahead of the competition.

In this article, we’ll explore the importance of competitor benchmarking, how to implement it, and the best tools to streamline this process.

What Is Competitive Benchmarking?

Competitive benchmarking involves comparing a client’s marketing results against campaign performance from other businesses or industry peers. This helps identify strengths, uncover weaknesses, and provide more macro context. 

Instead of analyzing metrics in isolation, benchmarking offers insight into how a client stacks up in the larger market. This perspective defines what “great” looks like, moving beyond isolated results to deliver a comprehensive, holistic picture.

Competitive Benchmarking vs. Competitive Analysis

It’s easy to confuse competitive benchmarking with competitive analysis, but they serve different purposes. As a quick reference: 

• Competitive Benchmarking Focuses on Quantifiable Data Points: It assesses a company’s performance against competitors by comparing specific metrics (such as web traffic, conversions, or ROI). This provides numerical, data-driven insights to assess and improve strategies.

• Competitive Analysis Examines Qualitative Strategies: This exercise takes a broader approach, considering a competitor’s messaging, target market, and branding. Essentially, it’s about determining how a competitor positions itself, not just how well they perform.

Doing a competitor analysis helps us stay in touch with what platforms, formats, and creative ideas the competition is using. We gain insights into our own campaign success or failure. It also gives us marketing ideas that we may not have tried yet.” 

Stuart Pereira, Campaign Manager (Paid Marketing), WSI Comandix

Think of it this way–competitive benchmarking provides the numbers to define success. On the flip side, competitive analysis highlights the strategies to achieve it. Together, they provide a full picture of what clients need to excel, step up their game, and outperform the competition.

Why Is Competitive Benchmarking Important?

Whether your client is a beloved neighborhood bakery or a global SaaS company, they’re likely asking the same question: Are we ahead of the competition?

Success is more than just getting by. It’s about creating a unique value proposition that compels customers to choose your client’s business over the rest.

That’s where competitive benchmarking comes in. It’s a powerful way to:

• Keep Your Clients Relevant: Industries evolve quickly; what worked six months ago might not cut it today. Benchmarking ensures you stay on top of trends and make strategic adjustments when needed.

• Inform Decision-Making: Use competitive benchmarks to base your recommendations on hard data instead of assumptions. This builds trust, demonstrates expertise, and increases customer satisfaction over time.

• Identify Underperforming Channels: Competitive benchmarking pinpoints which marketing channels lag behind competitors. Use this insight to prioritize improvements and allocate resources more effectively.

• Drives Continuous Improvement: Without benchmarks, it’s easy to settle for “good enough.” Examining the broader landscape pushes your agency to aim higher. It highlights what top performers do differently, providing a clearer roadmap to success.

The True Benefits of Competitive Benchmarking

Still not convinced? Let’s add another layer of specificity–here’s exactly how to use competitive benchmarking in your agency’s service offerings.

Competitive Benchmarking for UX

A great user experience (UX) is often the difference between engaging visitors or losing them to competitors.

Most times, a website is the first point of contact between a business and its potential customers. Our web design services are tailored to meet each client's unique needs, ensuring that their website looks great and functions optimally. Good design is good for business.

Adam Binder, Founder and CEO, Creative Click Media

Think about it: Prospects don’t want to wait for a slow-loading website (especially if it has clunky navigation or a confusing layout). Instead, they’ll probably head straight to a competitor’s website with a faster, more seamless experience. Not an ideal situation. 

To understand where your client’s website stands, monitor industry UX metrics like bounce rate and average session duration. Use this data to identify gaps in usability that might be causing leads to drop off (e.g., large media files that increase page load times). 

Social Media Competitor Benchmarking

Social media is much more than posting some content. 

Benchmarking compares key social media metrics—like engagement rates, number of social media followers, or click-through rates—against competitors. This identifies where a client excels and any areas for improvement. 

For example, say your retail client’s engagement rate is 2%, but the industry average is 5%. To improve this outcome, you may decide to experiment with CTA placements, create more engaging content, or focus on a different target audience. 

PPC Competitor Benchmarking

There’s a lot at stake for PPC campaigns.

For starters, your clients are investing their hard-earned dollars into advertising with the expectation that it yields significant ROI. And as their trusted marketing partner, you’ll want to ensure they’re getting enough bang for their buck.

That’s where PPC benchmarking comes in–it provides additional context around key metrics, like click-through rates (CTR), cost per click (CPC), and return on ad spend (ROAS). For instance, say competitors are achieving a lower CPC. It may be a sign to adjust your client’s bidding strategy, target less saturated keywords, or even provide justification for a budget increase.

Monitor industry benchmarks for PPC, SEO, email, social media, and more! See how your clients compare to others in their industry, and identify areas for improvement. Explore the Marketing Performance Insights suite in AgencyAnalytics, free for 14 days. 

Email Marketing Competitive Benchmarking

Email marketing is one of the most personal ways to connect with an audience. Without benchmarks, though, it’s hard to tell if your client’s campaigns are truly resonating. Keeping an eye on industry standards ensures your client’s emails do more than land in recipient inboxes. It provides a solid way to assess open rates, subscriber interest, and engagement. 

For example, picture a client with a lower-than-average email open rate. It may indicate a few potential issues, like unengaging subject lines or a compromised sender reputation. This may prompt your agency to make tweaks and steadily improve email performance over time. 

SEO Competitive Benchmarking

Conquering the SERPs is no easy feat. 

Instead of waiting and hoping for the best, benchmark your client’s SEO performance to ensure they’re on the right track. Macro insights on organic traffic numbers, keyword rankings, and backlink profiles reveal how your client compares to competitors. This informs what SEO adjustments should be made to yield long-term results.

For example, if a client’s organic traffic lags behind competitors, it might indicate the need for better keyword targeting or content optimization. These benchmarks guide specific SEO improvements–such as refining meta descriptions or acquiring high-quality backlinks–to boost visibility search results.

Your Practical Guide To Competitive Benchmarking

Now that we’ve explored the importance of a competitive benchmarking analysis, here’s a step-by-step overview of how to implement it.

1. Start With Your Client’s Objectives

Before conducting competitive benchmarking, decide on your client’s goal beforehand. 

That way, you won’t end up comparing their performance against arbitrary numbers that don’t reflect what they want to achieve. 

Goal setting is critical for establishing agency-client alignment. When we set goals in collaboration with our clients, it clearly outlines, "This is what we are trying to accomplish.” It also provides a structure to determine whether our marketing efforts are successful or not.

Kerrie Luginbill, Chief Strategy Officer, OTM

To get started, consider questions like:

• What are the client’s primary objectives (e.g., increasing lead generation, building brand awareness)?

• What key performance indicators (KPIs) will best measure success against these objectives?

• How do these marketing goals tie into their overall business strategy?

• Are there particular marketing platforms this client wants to focus on?

• Does this client operate in a specific niche or industry?

• Who are my client’s direct competitors?

Answering these questions will align performance benchmarking with meaningful goals and your client’s vision of success.

2. Invest in a Tool To Consolidate and Analyze Data

Next, you’ll need a way to consolidate your clients’ metrics in one place.

With multiple campaigns to manage, the last thing you need is a data analysis process that slows you down. The right tool saves time from toggling between platforms and manual data compilation. Plus, it makes life easier when it’s time to look at results and benchmark performance.

Not sure where to start? Here are some practical tips for choosing a comprehensive tool to gather data and streamline analysis. We’ll also cover a few popular competitive benchmarking tools soon (just in case you’re wondering). 

3. Choose Competitive Benchmark Metrics To Measure

After deciding on client goals and an appropriate tool, it’s time to hone in on competitive benchmarking metrics. To do this: 

• Focus On Relevant Data Points: Choose platform-specific benchmarks that reflect your client’s key objectives. For example, this may include:

  • Google Ads conversion rates for lead generation campaigns. 

  • Number of Mailchimp clicks for a product email campaign.

  • Followers gained from a brand awareness Instagram campaign.

  • Number of new backlinks generated from ongoing outreach efforts.

• Consider Industry Relevance: Ensure benchmarking data is specific to your client’s niche or market to provide accurate comparisons. For example, a B2B SaaS client will have different performance expectations than an ecommerce client.

4. Share Findings From Your Benchmarking Analysis 

Finally, it’s time to share those insights in an easy-to-understand format–here’s exactly how to do it.

Now that we’ve covered the best ways to conduct a competitive benchmarking analysis, here are a few popular tools to consider.

5 Common Competitive Benchmarking Tools

Benchmarking is only as good as the tools you use. Here’s a list of popular competitor benchmarking tools to consider, along with their use cases.

1. AgencyAnalytics

Instead of juggling multiple benchmarking tools, use a platform like AgencyAnalytics.

Powered by first-party data from 150,000+ campaigns across 7,000+ agencies, AgencyAnalytics provides a wealth of in-platform marketing performance insights. That way, you’ll have powerful reporting capabilities and campaign benchmarks in one place.

The visual interface makes it easy to identify anomalies, outliers, and possible areas for improvement. Even set up alerts to monitor critical metrics (like getting notified if a client’s monthly recurring revenue drops below a specific threshold).

Additionally, use the forecasting feature to give clients an idea of where their campaigns are headed. Highlight visual trends, share future projections, and demonstrate the long-term value of your services.

Gain a clear view of the competitive landscape and share forecasting insights, all with one tool. Create a solid competitive benchmarking strategy with data that matters–try AgencyAnalytics today, free for 14 days.

2. Google Analytics 

Google Analytics is often used for the strategic benchmarking of web metrics against industry standards (e.g., bounce rate, session duration).

This platform is also handy for analyzing referral, direct, and organic traffic proportions relative to competitor data. If your agency is solely focused on web-based benchmarking, Google Analytics is a great option.

That said, you’ll likely need a more comprehensive solution as your roster grows. Instead, stream that data into a visual Google Analytics dashboard and customize it with metrics or benchmarks across 80 platforms. 

3. Mailchimp 

Mailchimp offers a wealth of email marketing benchmarks across a range of industries.

To understand your client’s email performance, monitor benchmarks for open rates, subscriber trends, and clicks. Then, use this data to determine the most impactful email content and whether any adjustments are needed (e.g., using shorter copy).

While this data is helpful on its own, consider integrating Mailchimp with an all-in-one reporting tool. That way, you’ll be able to track multi-channel performance, not just email metrics and benchmarks.  

4. Semrush

It’s no secret that Semrush is a staple in many agencies.

Semrush is a commonly used tool for tracking SEO, PPC, and content marketing performance. It offers a range of capabilities, such as monitoring keywords, benchmarking website authority scores, and comparing the strength of backlink profiles.

That said, you may require additional benchmarking insights, especially if you’re a full-service agency (e.g., industry standards across email and social campaigns). In this scenario, using a reporting tool that captures benchmarks across various campaigns is more beneficial.

See how your client stacks up against the competition. Access Semrush benchmark averages for page score, external links, and more–check it out on AgencyAnalytics, free for 14 days.

5. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is a tool that works well for agencies primarily focused on social media.

This tool offers several competitive benchmarking features, such as comparing user engagement, identifying potential content gaps, and collating article shares. It may also be useful for inferring which topics resonate with your client’s industry.

While BuzzSumo excels in content insights, consider that it may be limiting if your agency needs supplementary benchmarking data (e.g., across PPC and email marketing campaigns).

Use Benchmarking To Assess Current Performance and Plan Future Efforts

Competitive benchmarking is a way to make smarter decisions and achieve better results for your clients. To sum things up, use competitive benchmarking to:

• Identify Performance Gaps: Compare key metrics like cost per click (CPC), conversion rates, or organic traffic to industry averages. Then, use this data to determine where your clients are excelling or underperforming.

• Track Industry Trends: Stay updated on shifting benchmarks and proactively adjust strategies when needed. Go a step further by including forecasts and visualizing potential future business performance.

• Set Realistic Goals: Use benchmarks as a baseline to set achievable KPIs, such as improving click-through rates (CTR) by 10% or reducing bounce rates by 15%.

• Communicate Valuable Insights: Provide clients with a clear, data-backed comparison of their performance against competitors. This adds extra value and reinforces your role as a trusted advisor.

No matter what you’re tracking, it all boils down to having the right tool at your disposal.

With AgencyAnalytics, consolidate data across 80+ platforms, track real-time data, and access valuable campaign benchmarks–all in one place. No need for multiple benchmarking tools; this platform has everything you need (and then some)!

Ready to streamline your competitive benchmarking process? Sign up for a free 14-day trial today.