Search Marketing Intelligence from Hitwise: Peep your competition
Aug 7, 2008 Hitwise, Webmaster Tips
First and foremost a disclaimer: In no way was this post sponsored by Experian or Hitwise, it’s merely an opinion piece. Hitwise (an Experian company) has been around for a while, collecting and analyzing online traffic metrics and offering insights and access to data on a subscription basis. What makes Hitwise unique is their sample sizes through ISP partnerships and opt-in panels in the millions, which easily dwarfs most of their competitors. Most larger advertisers and agencies would be wise to get themselves subscriptions, because the data available through Hitwise is second-to-none.
Obviously, Hitwise is not the most affordable solution on the market. In fact, I would hazard a guess that their subscription costs are well above everyone else in the industry. However, comparing apples to apples reveals a big difference in the accuracy and breadth of their metrics, giving Hitwise a distinct advantage in the field.
It’s no secret that Hitwise employs some serious data collection measures, gathering information directly from internet service providers (ISPs) at the network level. Scary? Maybe. A marketer’s dream? Absolutely. Just the prospect of all that raw data being collected in the first place is probably enough for most companies to sign on, however Hitwise takes it up a notch by correlating the raw network data with opt-in panel data for verfication and demographics.
So, how does Hitwise assist search marketers, both on the SEO and SEM side of the SERPs?
The data collected and grouped by Hitwise is catalogued in industry categories, making browsing for competitors in your space much easier. On the other hand, if you know your competitors well (for your own sake I hope you do), you can list them and compare visit metrics, search terms, and run gap analyses.
Over the past months I’ve talked to a few folks over at Hitwise at various Search Engine Strategies conferences, sat through a short demo of the product, and even queried some of my own keywords spanning multiple clients and was never disappointed by what the data reflected. Trends I noticed from my own analytics were closely mirrored in the metrics collected by Hitwise, and to go one further, a few keen Hitwise guys even found a few interesting trends I missed.
The keyword gap analysis is possibly the most tantilizing feature that Hitwise offers in their Search Intelligence tool. It actually allows you to run visit share metrics across multiple domain names and correlate which of those keywords are most effective for your clients, and your client’s competitors. You can easily find those bread and butter keywords and trend their effectiveness over months at a time, but also get insights into those diamonds in the rough.
If you haven’t talked to Hitwise just yet, give them a call or check out their booth at either a SMX or SES conference near you. You won’t believe what you’re missing.
Leave a Reply