Track & Counter Your Competitors’ Promotions and Discounts

Promos are one of the oldest tricks in the book for giving sales a lift.

It's the easiest way to boost a day/week/month sales.

It's also a way to impact your market, as you're helping undecided buyers to take their decisions quicker – especially if they were waiting for the right occasion to buy.

It also mean... that if one of your competitor is organizing a sale, then this might impact your sales and your performance too!

That is why, it's key to track your competitors' discounts, so you can understand the promotional universe your audience is in.

Are they seeing new promotions every week? Or are they pretty unsual? Which kind of promotions, which level of discount are usually promoted by competitors?

That's the kind of data you should be tracking.

However, many brands don’t make it a point to track what promotions or discounts their competitors are offering their customers. 

Not only is keeping tabs on your competitors good for awareness, but it’s also a sharp tool for staying relevant in the market and adapting before you get left behind. 

How do you monitor your competition’s promos? We’ve created this guide that answers just that, among other questions. 

Hopefully, after reading this, you can get started right away with tracking your competitors’ promotions and creating promotions that your customers love. 

Yep, you read that right - we'll share how to counter and do better!

Why track your competitor’s promotions?

Adjust your promotions

Are your promotions not getting the reception you want? Looking at your competitors will help you adjust your offers and make them more lucrative. 

You need to know what prices your competitors are selling their products at and how they persuade customers to buy using different channels before you can tweak your promotions so your audience perceives it as the more valuable option.

By promotion monitoring, you’ll see what the industry thinks is a fair price for your products. 

Remember, lower is not always better. Too much of a discount reflects badly on your products, especially if they’re already underpriced. 

And how do you know if you’re underselling yourself? By tracking your competitors’ prices and promos.

Identify patterns in their promotions or marketing calendar

It helps to take a macro view when tracking your competitors’ promotional campaigns as well. Discounts and other promotional offers vary throughout the year. They may ramp up in periods such as back to school or Christmas, when people are more likely to shop. 

When do your competitors start advertising these promos? Do they start a month in advance or longer? 

What kind of offers are they giving for each season or holiday? What products are they highlighting during each key marketing event?

If you’ve monitored them closely, you’ll know the answer. 

Refine your unique value proposition

Tracking competitor promotions can be the key to differentiating yourself effectively from your competitors. Watch their moves over time then take advantage of opportunities to position yourself more favorably. 

For example, if you’re competing with a prestige brand, tracking their promos will help you determine where your promos are lacking and where you can compete outside of pricing.

You can find an aspect that sets you or your product apart and emphasize it in your marketing.

Ways to Monitor Your Competitors’ Promotions and Discounts

Search online

Visit your competitors’ websites and social media profiles on relevant platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. This is just the starting point but it’s a foundational step for the analysis you’ll conduct in the long run. 

Brands are always promoting a new discount, freebie, or rebate online, so you need to keep an eye on this regularly. It’s not a one-time thing.

Aside from their website homepage, monitor their product pages and even their blogs for the latest news and releases.

Sign up for their emails

An easy way to stay updated on promotions is by subscribing to your competitor’s newsletter. As part of their mailing list, you’ll be one of the first to receive their promotional offers. 

This may or may not be the same offer they make on other channels, so it’s a worthwhile addition to your knowledge base. 

If you spot differences in promotions between emails and ads, for example, that will clue you in about what’s the most effective product or promo to push on each channel.

Conduct surveys

Surveys are a more involved way to gather data about promotions, but they can be a good use of your time. 

Now, it’s even easier to conduct surveys because survey platforms help you do the dissemination of questionnaires up to the collection and organization of answers. 

You can also do one-on-one surveys through channels like phone or in-person interviews. The main thing to ask during these surveys is how each customer has come across promos (like coupons or rebates) from your competitor. 

Then, you can move on to qualitative data, such as how satisfied they are with the promos. 

Use competitor intelligence tools or price tracking tools

Competitor intelligence tools are no doubt the fastest and convenient way to track your competitor’s promotions. However, they do come at a price, but if you’re serious about competitive analysis, it’s a great investment. 

Usually, these tools have analytics and detailed reports built in to make sense of the information they collect. 

These are some of the competitor promotion tracking tools we recommend that are built for competitor monitoring and analysis:

• Kompyte
• Crayon
• Semrush
• Visualping
• Panoramata

How to counter your competitors’ promotions

Have promotions other than discounts

There are several ways to make your catalog enticing than just offering an ample discount. Common tactics include a gift with purchase, a rebate, a buy-one-get-one-free promo, and a welcome gift for first-time buyers. 

QUOTE: You don’t even have to have a long-term or generous discount, just a well-timed one that taps into an audience’s fear of missing out.

You can also host flash sales, clearance sales, perks for loyalty program members, and other seasonal promotions. 

Create urgency or scarcity

Offering a limited-time discount is a tried and true method for pushing customers to buy right away. You can also emphasize that your stocks are limited to drive this kind of behavior. Scarcity and urgency tactics are widely used because they work well. 

You don’t even have to have a long-term or generous discount, just a well-timed one that taps into an audience’s fear of missing out.

Emphasize your USP

In your promotional materials, highlight your edge over your competitor that’s not based on price. For example, you can say that you have excellent customer service and a no-questions-asked return policy. 

Capitalize on your strengths and think of what makes you different from the competition, then integrate those in your ads, emails, and content. 

Sprinkle in social proof like testimonials, customer reviews, and user-generated content to really drive home the value you give. 

Give them several payment options

Accessibility can be a deciding factor as well. Make sure your target customers can choose from different ways to pay for their purchase. 

Also, if you can, try to include installment options for budget-conscious customers and a money-back guarantee for shoppers with doubts about the product.

Tracking competitor promotions effectively

That concludes our simple guide to tracking your competitors’ promotions. We’ve highlighted the benefits of competitor monitoring specifically for promos and discounts, plus several sources of information for this and methods to extract the information. 

Finally, you need to use the insights wisely to improve your communications and advertising so you can position yourself better and capture the hearts of your audience. 

All of this is an ongoing process, so it makes sense to use specialized competitor intelligence tools to save time and energy.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is it important to track my competitors' promotions?

Monitoring competitor promotions helps you understand market pricing and adjust your own offers to remain competitive and relevant. By observing their strategies, you can also identify industry trends and refine your unique value proposition.

What are some easy ways to start tracking competitor promotions?

Begin by regularly visiting your competitors' websites and social media pages to see their current offers. You can also sign up for their email newsletters to receive direct updates on their promotions.

Are there tools that can help with tracking competitors' promotions?

Yes, there are competitor intelligence tools available, such as Panoramata, Kompyte and Crayon, that can automate and streamline the process. These tools often provide analytics and reports to help you analyze the collected information effectively.