Online tools for gathering market intelligence - Digital Marketing Strategy

In the chapter on online reputation management, many tools were detailed which allow an organisation to gather information related to their business and those of competitors. These same tools also prove invaluable for market research, especially when keywords monitored are chosen to reflect industry trends.

 Search data for both SEO and PPC
SpyFu www.spyfu.com

SEO Book’s Rank Checker www.tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker

Watching competitor activities
ChangeDetection www.changedetection.com
Google Alerts www.google.com/alerts
Google Patent Search www.google.com/patents

Trends and market research
Google Insights www.google.com/insights/search
Flickr www.flickr.com
Delicious www.delicious.com
Google AdWords External Keyword Tool
www.adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

When researching competitors, never forget the basics: visit their websites! Not only
can you gather basic price and product information, but it can be relatively easy to
discover information about their marketing initiatives such as affiliate marketing.