6 Digital Marketing Hacks the Competition is Using to Steal Your Customers

Business competition is nothing new. Ever since the dawn of business, similar companies have been using various tactics to outsmart their competition and gain an edge over them. This is no less true today in the digital marketing arena.

It is not just about edging out your competition by pricing, better products, or sales manipulations in today’s online advertising world, but by redirecting your competitor’s customers using sneaky, but ethical, digital marketing techniques. Techniques that, if not known, are giving an unfair advantage to your competition as they siphon and sift your potential customers away from you.

The following 6 digital marketing hacks will teach you how to tap into your competitor’s online lifeline and shift their customer streams into your business instead.

Hack #1: Google Ads & Your Competitor’s Most Valuable Keywords

Google search terms are a boon to any business that advertises online, especially those that use the Google Adwords platform to target specific keywords.

As Google is the most visited website in the world, it can give companies advertising on its paid platform an almost endless supply of potential customers. That is if advertised in the right way.

Many companies use “branded keywords,” such as the names of their competitors to attract visitors via Google Ads.

 

This technique is simple and effective and takes a lot of the guesswork out of keyword research. Not to mention it saves the advertiser a lot of money in the process.

Hack #2: Gmail Ads & Branded Keywords

Similar to the above hack, this method differs slightly in that you will use the Gmail interface instead of the Google Search page to target your competitor’s branded keywords.

Gmail Ads work in much the same way as Google Ads do but usually appear on the top of the most recent email list.

By targeting your competitor’s branded keywords via Gmail Ads, you can put your business in front of millions of Gmail users who have searched for or asked to receive emails from your competitors.

Hack #3: Facebook Ads, Competitor Brand, & Interests

Facebook makes it very easy to do so as long as you know who your competitors are.

Using the Facebook Ad platform you can choose your competitor’s brand name under the interests section and get your ads displaying in front of those who have shown an interest in your competitors.

For example, if you are selling supplements online, you might want to choose Bodybuilding.com as a target interest to get your ads shown to Facebook users who like and/or visit this specific website.

Hack #4: YouTube & TruViews

Very similar to the above-mentioned methods, you can use YouTube’s TrueView advertising to target your competitors’ videos by running video ads of your own over theirs.

Your ad will appear right before their video does and you will get the first chance to show what you have to offer before your competition does.

It seems almost illegal to do such things, but it is totally legal to do so according to YouTube policies. Again, all you really need is to know who your competitors are and how to create your video in such a way as to attract the viewer’s attention to your offer and away from your competition.

Hack #5: Twitter Ads To Target Your Competitors Followers

Everyone talks about Google, Facebook, and YouTube as the best digital advertising mediums these days, but most businesses dismiss the other 600-pound gorilla in the room – Twitter.

With over 300 million monthly users Twitter is no advertising joke. Studies have shown that over 40% of these 300 million users are following some brand or another.

If you know your competitor’s Twitter accounts, you can target their followers through the Twitter Ads platform. What is more, there are many tools like Audiense, Twitonomy, and FollowerWonk that allows you to download the usernames and profiles of your competitor’s followers into a streamlined format.

After you have downloaded these names, all you have to do is upload the usernames in the “Tailored Audience” section of the Twitter Ads platform and voila, you have got your message in front of your competitor’s audience.

Hack #6: Dissatisfied Twitter Followers (Free Method)

The above methods are fine if you have money to spend on advertisement, but this hack works even if you have very little to spend or no money at all.

The only caveat to this hack is that your competitors must have a Twitter channel that handles support issues. Many of the big names do.

Once you have located your competitor’s support channels on Twitter, you can view each complaint and target ads using the Twitter Ad platform to reach out to each and every frustrated customer, offering them sympathy and guidance on how to deal with the situation (hint: how your business can help if they give it a try).

To make it easier on yourself, simply follow your competitor’s support channel to receive immediate complaint registrations and act on them before they get resolved.

Conclusion

If you are not using these digital marketing strategies to get in front of your competitor’s audiences, then you can be sure that many of them are using these same hacks to steal yours.

Therefore, put these strategies into play today and see how your customer base increases each and every day.