Do you ever feel like your competitors are always one step ahead?
One day, you're ranking well; the next, they've overtaken you in search results and launched a cool product or marketing campaign that seems everywhere.
Take a breath!
It’s not just luck - they're making strategic moves, and if you're not watching them, you're playing catch-up.
To understand your competitors in 2025, you need more than SEO data and preferably automated processes.
You need to know:
- How they price and position their products
- What business and marketing strategies do they use
- How they acquire and convert customers
That's where tools like Ahrefs and Panoramata come in.
This guide will walk you through the exact steps to track your competitors with Ahrefs and use Panoramata to get the complete picture.
Do you want a video version of this guide? Check out our video tutorial below.
Otherwise, let’s get into it.
Track Your Competitors with Ahrefs
When you ask how to find and track your competitors with Ahrefs, the first thing that comes up is SEO competitor analysis.
This simply means identifying the websites that rank for the same keywords as you and analyzing their strategies to see why they're ahead.
Ahrefs is one of the most powerful tools for analyzing SEO competitors, tracking website traffic, and identifying content strategies that work.
And instead of guessing, Ahrefs gives you accurate data to help you make smarter marketing decisions.
Here's a look at how you can track your competitors with Ahrefs.
How Ahrefs Helps Spot SEO Competitors
One of the biggest mistakes e-commerce businesses make is assuming that their competitors are just companies selling similar products.
In reality, your biggest SEO competitors rank for the exact keywords as you - whether they're direct competitors or not.
For example, if you sell organic skincare, your main competitors could be other skincare brands, beauty blogs, e-commerce marketplaces, and review sites ranking for skin care.
By identifying the right competitors, you can:
- Understand who's taking your traffic.
- Discover which SEO strategies are working for them.
- Identify opportunities to outperform them in search results.
With Ahrefs, you can quickly discover your real SEO competitors with its Competing Domains and Organic Competitors reports.
Here's how to do it:
Step 1: Enter your website URL in the Ahrefs Site Explorer.
Step 2: Scroll until you see the Top Organic Competitors that share similar keywords.
Step 3: Click on Organic Competitors from the left slider to analyze shared rankings, keyword overlap, and traffic estimates.
These reports show:
- which sites rank alongside you
- how many keywords they share with you
- and where they're outranking you
As you can see, “Wild Flower Cases” ranks well on keywords similar to Rhode Cosmetics.
Let’s check them in detail.
And so, here are all the keywords that Rhode and Wild Flower Cases compete for.
💡 By doing the same analysis with your competitors, you can find potential keywords that you can rank higher and increase the traffic for your website.
How to Explore Traffic Sources and Trends
Now that you know who your competitors are, you can track their traffic sources and the trends they follow.
You might ask why it is important to know where your competitors get their traffic.
Well, because it helps you to:
- Identify the best marketing channels (SEO, paid advertising, social media, referral traffic).
- Discover backlink opportunities by seeing which sites send traffic to them.
- Check paid traffic strategies and see if they're worth investing in.
To explore your competitor traffic sources and trends, follow the following steps:
Step 1: Enter a competitor's domain into the Ahrefs Site Explorer.
Let’s continue with Rhode.
Step 2: Go to the Overview section to see their estimated monthly traffic.
Step 3: Click on the Organic Search tab to analyze keyword rankings and top-performing pages.
Step 4: Click on Referring Domains to see which websites are linking to them.
Step 5: Check the Paid Search tab to see if they're running Google Ads and what keywords they're targeting.
How can this data help you?
If your competitor spends a lot on running Google Ads on specific keywords, this indicates that those keywords are highly profitable.
Instead of running ads, you can optimize your content for those keywords and try to rank organically, saving money while still getting traffic.
How to Track Your Competitors’ Content Efforts
To complete tracking your competitors on Ahrefs, see how they curate their content.
The logic is simple: If they rank well, it's probably because they're publishing the right content that resonates with their audience.
Ahrefs provides several tools to track and analyze this data:
- Top Pages Report: Shows their top-performing pages based on traffic
- Content Gap Analysis: Reveals keywords they're ranking for that you're not.
- Best by Links Report: Highlights pages with the most backlinks.
Use Ahrefs' Top Content Report to see which competitors' pages get the most social shares. This can help you identify trending topics and create content or product pages that are more likely to be shared.
Dive Deeper Into Competitor Tracking with Panoramata For your E-commerce
While Ahrefs is ideal for competitor tracking, it only gives you SEO and web data, which is part of the picture.Knowing what keywords your competitors are ranking for is essential, but what about their email marketing, social media ads, pricing strategy, and overall marketing efforts?
The best tool you can use is Panoramata to get even more insight.
It's the ultimate e-commerce intelligence tool designed to help businesses like yours track, analyze, and benchmark competitors' marketing strategies - without the hassle of manual research.
Instead of subscribing to competitors' newsletters, stalking their social media ads, or checking their websites daily, Panoramata automates it all for you.
Here is a detailed guide on how Panoramata can help your e-commerce business effortlessly stay ahead of the competition.
Track Email and Social Media Campaign Performances
Competitors' marketing strategies are constantly evolving. New promotions, email sequences, and ad campaigns appear weekly, and missing these updates can mean losing potential customers.
Panoramata automates tracking your competitors' email marketing campaigns and paid social media ads so you can see what's working for them and adjust your strategy accordingly.
Panoramata tracks:
- Email newsletters and promotions - frequency, subject lines, messaging, and discount strategies.
- Social media ads - what products they promote, how often they run ads, and engagement levels.
- Campaign timing and patterns - identifying trends in their seasonal sales, product launches, and flash promotions.
- Landing pages - showing how your competitors adjust their landing pages during different seasons and holidays.
It gets even more interesting when you track your competitors' release calendars and identify recurring patterns in their marketing strategy.
Ultimately, monitoring your competitors isn't just about watching for new updates - it's about understanding long-term patterns and shifts in strategy. Some changes happen quickly, but others develop over months and provide essential insights into their direction.
For example, if they consistently send targeted discount emails ahead of major sales events, it's a strong indication that early promotions are helping to drive engagement and sales.
By identifying these trends in advance, you can strategically plan your campaigns and set up your marketing calendars to stay competitive and not miss out on key opportunities.
Uncover Your Competitor’s Tech Stack and Innovations
Let’s go even further.
The software your competitors use can tell you a lot about their marketing strategy, customer experience, operational efficiency, and even their use of AI.
But why do you need this info?
By understanding their e-commerce tech stack, you can try new hacks and tools that boost your sales and marketing efforts, help you stay on top of industry trends, and discover opportunities for improvement.
With Panoramata, you discover:
- E-commerce platforms - Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, or others.
- Email marketing automation - Klaviyo, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaig,n and more.
- Conversion optimization software - A/B testing platforms, heatmaps, and AI chatbots.
- Fulfillment and logistics technologies - shipping automation, inventory management, and third-party logistics providers.
Finally, if your competitors start using a new email marketing platform, this could indicate better automated features or more substantial segmentation capabilities, so you should try it out as well.
Create Lists And Monitor Competitor Activity Over Time
Ultimately, monitoring your competitors isn't just about watching for new updates - it's about understanding long-term patterns and shifts in strategy.
Some changes happen quickly, but others develop over months and provide essential insights into their direction.
With Panoramata, you can:
- Track competitor changes consistently and see what strategies they commit to
- Compare historical data to identify recurring trends in their marketing
- Get real-time alerts when a competitor launches a new product, adjusts pricing, or updates their website
By creating lists of your competitors, you can:
- Consistently track competitor changes and see what strategies they are adopting.
- Compare historical data to identify recurring trends in their marketing.
- Receive real-time alerts when a competitor launches a new product, changes prices, or updates their website.
Final Thoughts: Why Panoramata Is A Must-Have For Tracking Your Competitors
Once you analyze the data and understand the insights you need to track your competitors, it becomes clear that Ahrefs alone isn't enough.
While it's great for SEO tracking, a tool like Panoramata adds more profound value by providing a complete view of your competitor's marketing strategies, pricing, and campaign patterns - giving you the complete picture you need to stay ahead.
With Panoramata, you manage to:
- Track email and social media campaigns to see what's working for competitors.
- Analyze your tech stack to discover new tools and automation opportunities.
- Get real-time alerts on key competitive changes.
- Store and compare historical data to track long-term trends.
So add Panoramata to your favorite tools next time you decide to find and track competitors.
Ready to start your own competitive analysis? Grab your free competitive analysis template below.
If you’d like to learn more about Panoramata, book a demo with us or take it out for a spin by signing up here.
FAQs
1. Why should I track my competitors?
Tracking competitors helps you understand their strategies, find new opportunities, and improve your marketing efforts. It allows you to stay ahead instead of playing catch-up.
2. How can Ahrefs help with competitor tracking?
Ahrefs identifies your SEO competitors, analyzes keyword rankings, and tracks traffic sources. It also shows backlink opportunities and content strategies to help you rank higher.
3. What does Panoramata do differently?
Panoramata tracks competitors' email campaigns, social media ads, and pricing strategies. It provides a complete picture of their marketing efforts beyond SEO.
