[Estimated read time: 10 minutes, Marketing competence: Intermediate]

Success in marketing does not happen by chance, it requires rapid experiments with data-based decision-making. In simple terms you would need to do a lot of A/B testing for your ads, emailers and landing pages, basically trial and error for 3 to 6 months before you start seeing consistent positive results. It took us 8 weeks to hit the sweet spot on this lead generation project where we generated R30 million in monthly revenue with a R400 000 investment in marketing.

Here are 13 tools you can use to steal from competitors, and fast-track the growth of your brand or business.

Housekeeping note.

Don’t do anything that will destroy your reputation. Copying what works is a simple & practical strategy, but don’t cross any boundaries. In this article, I’ll show you how to steal your competitors’ traffic, product ideas, and customers in a 100% fair way.

1. Similar Web.

Steal their social media traffic Drop your competitors’ URL in http://similarweb.com It will tell you what % of their web traffic comes from which social media platform Looks like this

Generally, this traffic will be from ads and not content. To steal their social traffic, you’ll need to steal their ad strategy. If they’re getting their traffic from Facebook.

2. Facebook Ads Library

Steal their Facebook ads Go to Facebook Ad Library and find ads that your competitor has been running for 6+ months. All of these ads are likely profitable http://facebook.com/ads/library/

Copy your competitors’ ads comprehensively. Steal the ad copy, and the offer, and get similar pictures and videos shot to recreate their ad for your brand. In case they’re getting their traffic from YouTube…

3. Ad Spyder

Steal their YouTube ads Go to http://adspyder.io/youtube-ads-spy/ And study & steal ads they’ve been running on YouTube for 6+ months. All those ads are most likely profitable.

4. Ispionage

Steal their google ad traffic Put your competitors’ website into http://ispionage.com to see which keywords they are running ads for.

It will show you their top-performing ads.

Every top-performing ad is taking visitors to a landing page. Something about that landing page – Google ad combination works for them. Copy it.

5. Moz

Steal their SEO Traffic Use http://www.moz.com to find keywords with 10K+ traffic that your competitors are ranking for with less than 15 links. You can hire good blog writers, build more than 20 links and steal that traffic. Rinse and repeat for more keywords.

6. Owletter

Steal their Email Campaigns http://owletter.com captures every email your competitors send to their mailing list. They’ve spent months perfecting conversion on these email campaigns. Study and Learn. (Maybe copy).

7.Built With

Steal their tech stack Sometimes your competitors are winning just by using better tools than you. (Like some of the tools mentioned in this article) Use http://builtwith.com to find what tools are integrated with their website and never fall behind.

8. Google Alerts

Set Google alerts to track every strategic move of your competitor Imagine one of your competitors is @heinken. You can set up alerts for – When they post a job online – When they push a product update.

9. Moat

Use http://moat.com and set up alerts for all new ads that your competitors roll out. Get notified when your competitor sets up new ads and keep an eye on what is working for them.

10. Brand Mentions

Track their social mentions Use http://brandmentions.com to track what their customers love & hate. Mostly track what they hate. Comment on frustrated customers’ posts with a solution – your product!

11. Retention

Use http://retention.com to capture emails of every person that visits your site, without them entering their email. If they come to your site, you have their email. I know, freaky!

12. Hotjar

Track your visitors and improve your site conversion. Use http://hotjar.com to track every click, scroll and movement of your visitors and create a heatmap. Redesign your site to make it easier for people to purchase.

13. First 1000

Copy early customer acquisition strategies from Dropbox, Tinder, Uber, AirBnB, Calendly & other popular apps. http://first1000.co is a newsletter that will tell you how they got their first 1,000 users.

The list of tools above is able to assist you to quickly and legally replicating a competitor’s winning tactics without spending a lot of time testing ads and landings pages. You will still need to have your own clear strategy and north star. Copying what works is a simple & practical strategy, but don’t cross any boundaries. Don’t do anything that will destroy your reputation.

We have made it easy for you to Do-It-Yourself, however, if you need assistance accelerating your growth and experimentation processes then please contact us.

Credits: Joe Speiser, Sibusiso Radebe