Curious about what your key competitors are doing with their email marketing campaigns? Analyzing the competition is a smart move to stay ahead. In this post, you will learn how to check competitors email marketing campaigns using several straightforward methods and powerful tools.

We will cover ethical tricks and competitor analysis tools to help you gather valuable insight. This information can dramatically improve your own email marketing strategy.

Table of Contents:

• Why Check Your Competitors’ Email Campaigns?
• Sign Up for Your Competitors’ Email Lists
• Use Competitor Analysis Tools for Email
  • What to Look for in a Competitor Tracking Tool
• Check Social Media for Email Content
• Analyze Landing Pages
• Monitor Brand Mentions
• Check Industry Reports
• Use Email Testing Services
• Look at Job Listings
• Analyze Email Headers and Source Code
• Use Broader Marketing Intelligence Platforms
• Conclusion

Why Check Your Competitors’ Email Campaigns?

Before exploring the methods, let’s discuss the benefits of this practice. Observing what other businesses in your niche are doing provides a wealth of marketing intelligence. You can spot emerging trends, get email inspiration for your own marketing campaigns, and see what is working for others.

Analyzing competitors’ email marketing helps you benchmark performance against industry standards. This competitor analysis shows you where you stand and what you need to improve. It also helps you understand competitor messaging and how they appeal to your shared target audience.

The goal is not to copy but to learn and innovate. Use what you discover to create an effective email strategy that provides real value. This approach helps build relationships with your subscribers and beat competition.

Sign Up for Your Competitors’ Email Lists

The most direct way to monitor competitor emails is to subscribe to their lists. Use a personal email address or create a dedicated one for this purpose. This gives you a front-row seat to their entire email marketing strategy from a customer’s perspective.

Once you are on their email list, you can easily track their activity. Pay close attention to several key elements to get a full picture. This form of competitor email monitoring provides raw data directly from the source.

Organize the emails you receive into folders for each competitor. This keeps your primary inbox clean and makes it simple to compare email strategies. Over time, you will build a library of their marketing efforts that you can reference anytime.

Here are some specific things to watch for:

• The frequency of their emails and specific send times.
• The types of content they share, from blog posts to product announcements.
• Their subject lines and how they grab attention.
• The design, layout, and mobile responsiveness of their company’s email.
• Special offers, promotions, and the calls to action they use.
• The tone and voice they use to communicate with their customer base.

Use Competitor Analysis Tools for Email

If you prefer a more automated approach, several analysis tools are built for this. These platforms, often called an intelligence tool or tracking tool, collect and analyze email campaigns from countless brands. They provide a high-level view without flooding your inbox.

A good analysis tool can offer deep competitive insights. You can track send time, email frequency, promotional patterns, and even the word count of emails. This data allows for a more robust marketing analysis of your competitors’ email strategies.

Many of these platforms offer key features like a searchable database of past campaigns. This lets you see how a competitor’s messaging has shifted over time. Using a dedicated monitoring tool saves you time and often uncovers data you couldn’t find manually.

What to Look for in a Competitor Tracking Tool

When selecting a competitor analysis tool, consider what information is most important to you. Some tools focus heavily on e-commerce, while others are better for B2B or content marketing. Look for a platform that aligns with your industry and goals.

A quality competitor tracking tool should provide data on:

• Sending Patterns: Analyze the days and times competitors send their emails to optimize your own send times.
• Promotional Strategy: See the percentage of emails that contain discounts and what kind of offers they run.
• Subject Line Analysis: Track subject line length, sentiment, and the use of emojis or personalization.
• Design & Technology: Some tools identify the email service provider (ESP) used and whether emails are mobile-friendly.

Check Social Media for Email Content

Many brands repurpose their email content on social media. Follow your key competitors on platforms like Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and LinkedIn. You can often see parts of their email campaigns without being a subscriber.

Brands often share a link to view the email in a browser or post screenshots of their newsletters. This practice extends the reach of their content marketing. It also provides another avenue for you to monitor competitor activities.

This approach also reveals how their email marketing integrates with their larger social media strategy. You can see how they drive sign-ups from social channels and engage their audience across platforms. This gives you a more complete picture of their marketing efforts.

Analyze Landing Pages

A successful email will almost always direct readers to a landing page. By studying these pages, you can deduce the goal of a competitor’s email marketing campaign. Tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush can help you find your competitors’ most visited pages, many of which are tied to their email strategies.

Look for pages that are clearly linked from an email, such as those with exclusive offers. Analyze the messaging, design, and calls to action on these pages. This will give you valuable insight into their conversion funnel and marketing campaign structure.

Tracking changes to these landing pages over time can also be very useful. A competitor tracking tool can automate this process, alerting you to new offers or messaging. This helps you understand competitor A/B tests and strategy shifts in real-time.

Monitor Brand Mentions

Set up alerts or use social listening tools to monitor mentions of your competitors online. Customers often discuss emails they receive, especially if the content or offer is noteworthy. This feedback provides an unfiltered view of how their campaigns are perceived by their target audience.

Look for discussions on social media, review sites, and forums like Reddit. You might find people sharing screenshots of a successful email or complaining about sending frequency. This feedback can highlight strengths in their strategy or weaknesses you can exploit.

Monitoring these conversations is like getting free market research. You can identify customer pain points and gain an understanding of their customer engagement tactics. Use this knowledge to refine your own email marketing and better serve your subscribers.

Check Industry Reports

Industry reports and marketing case studies often showcase successful email campaigns. While they might not focus on your direct competitors, they provide a great way to track trends. These reports are excellent for understanding what is working on a broader scale within your industry.

Websites like MarketingSherpa, HubSpot, and Litmus frequently publish research on email marketing. They cover topics from open rates to effective design. This information helps you benchmark performance against established industry standards and identify areas for improvement.

Studying these reports helps you create email campaigns that are current and effective. It keeps you informed about new technologies and tactics. This proactive learning is essential to staying competitive.

Use Email Testing Services

Services like Litmus and Email on Acid are designed to show how emails render across different clients and devices. While you cannot test competitors’ email directly, many of these platforms have public galleries. These galleries showcase great email examples from various brands for email inspiration.

Studying these examples can teach you a lot about effective email design and coding. You can see how top brands structure their emails for maximum impact. You can even inspect the source code to understand their techniques.

This information helps you create an effective email that looks great and functions perfectly for all your subscribers. Understanding rendering best practices prevents technical glitches that can hurt your campaign’s performance. It is a critical step in professional email marketing.

Look at Job Listings

This is an unconventional but surprisingly useful tactic. When a competitor hires for an email marketing role, the job description can reveal a lot about their strategy. It may list the specific tools, platforms, and skills they value.

The description might mention goals like growing the email list or improving click-through rates. It could also specify experience needed with automation, segmentation, or a particular email service provider. This provides a peek into their internal priorities and marketing strategies.

Analyzing job listings gives you a sense of their team’s capabilities and their future direction. This competitive intelligence can inform your own hiring and technology choices. It is a creative way to understand competitor operations.

Analyze Email Headers and Source Code

For those comfortable with a bit of technical work, analyzing email headers offers more information. The header can reveal the email service provider (ESP) a competitor uses. Knowing this can give you an idea of their technical capabilities and potential budget.

To view the email header, look for an option like “Show Original” or “View Full Header” in your email client. Inside, you can find routing information and server details. While dense, this data can be useful for a deep marketing analysis.

Diving into the email’s source code can also be insightful. You can see how they structure their HTML, what tracking pixels they use, and if they employ any special coding tricks. This is a great way to learn advanced techniques from your competitors’ email campaigns.

Use Broader Marketing Intelligence Platforms

Beyond specialized email tools, broader marketing intelligence platforms offer a holistic view. Tools like Similarweb or Crayon track a company’s entire digital footprint. They monitor website changes, advertising, social media, and content marketing.

These platforms provide context for a company’s email marketing. You can see how a major email campaign corresponds with a new ad spend or a website redesign. This helps you understand their overall marketing campaign and how email fits in.

Using a comprehensive intelligence tool helps you connect the dots between different marketing channels. This allows for a more strategic competitive analysis. You are not just looking at their emails; you are looking at their entire ecosystem to compare performance and strategy.

Conclusion

Learning how to check competitors email marketing campaigns provides you with powerful marketing intelligence. From simply subscribing to their email list to using a sophisticated competitor analysis tool, many methods are available. This competitor tracking helps you understand the landscape of your industry.

Use these competitive insights to identify areas for improvement in your own email marketing campaign. The goal is to learn from what others are doing and find opportunities to do it better. You can refine your messaging, improve your design, and optimize your send strategy.

Remember to use this information for inspiration, not imitation. The most successful email marketing is authentic and provides genuine value to its audience. By analyzing competitors’ email campaigns, you gain the knowledge to innovate and lead in your market.