Competitive intelligence: Capturing a wider view
Referrer links allow Trellian customers to drill down and find out what the exact URLs are for the source of traffic directed to a competitor’s site. Working backward, link partners and affiliate partners of the competitors can be discovered. That intelligence can then be fed back into the organization’s strategic planning to help management make decisions such as choosing their own partners and affiliates or working with some of their competitors’ partners.
When Trellian CI captures a keyword ad, it takes a snapshot of the search engine that has delivered the user to the site, and then records the keyword’s ranking at the time of the click. The ranking reflects the bid price competitors are paying for a keyword and its position on the search results page.
“A website’s success is greatly dependent on the quality of targeted traffic it receives,” says Nancy Bianchi, VP of sales at Trellian. “Having access to competitive resources allows companies to learn from their competitors’ mistakes and strategies.” Any national or global online business competing for online traffic benefits from knowing its competitors’ traffic sources. Whether the business is travel, news, shopping or entertainment, success comes down to what works to drive traffic and conversions. Tracking that information is an ongoing challenge, but an important part of a CI strategy.
Quick insights from CI
To prepare for a presentation at a meeting of the Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals, Martha Matteo, Ph.D., a CI coach and process analyst, wanted to monitor the emerging field of bioplastics. Those products function like plastics but are made from starches and other renewable resources, rather than from petroleum. They also have the potential to biodegrade under industrial conditions in a matter of weeks.
Matteo became interested in the field after hearing a talk by Catia Bastioli, Ph.D., the CEO of Novamont, a world leader in the field. Matteo’s presentation was designed to show how CI could provide a company like Novamont with a strategy for expanding its presence in the United States.
“I used Digimind to track the field over a four-month period,” says Matteo. “I am not an information specialist, but was able to use the software with no difficulty. It brought up detailed, targeted information that revealed some of the most innovative ongoing work in the field.”
Among Matteo’s discoveries: Goodyear worked with Genencor to introduce a concept tire made with Biolsoprene, which is derived from plant sources. Further, she discovered that a Japanese company is making tires from orange peels.