Do you know the importance and role of benchmarking within marketing?
It helps professionals to follow trends, market developments and best practices to improve their own strategies.
All this with observation , research and comparison of the results and actions of other companies, be they competitors, in the same sector or in different areas of activity.
If you also want to follow the market, check out the full post — with tips and examples on how to explore benchmarking in marketing .
What is benchmarking?
Keeping an eye on what your competitors are doing is important to follow the market, think strategically and make your brand stand out before your target audience.
This strategy is called benchmarking — when a company follows the practices of other companies in the area and other segments to use them as a reference (both what to do and what not to do).
Why benchmark in marketing?
Benchmarking helps companies understand what needs to change, how to adapt to market needs and, thus, become a competitive advantage.
When we talk about benchmarking in marketing , this analysis of the competition and the market helps in monitoring trends , aligning best practices , optimizing strategies and monitoring results - whether from competitors or from the industry as a whole.
What are the types of benchmarking?
Benchmarking can be categorized into a few types.
They vary mainly according to the desired objective when applying the practice.
Let's go to them:
Competitive
If you want to compare your actions and results with your direct competitors , you will make use of competitive benchmarking .
Therefore, access to information can be more complex and hampered by the simple fact that your competitors will not always agree to share data with your company.
Performatic
On the other hand, performance benchmarking is related to business performance — performance.
This type of research and comparison focuses efforts on KPIs , metrics and results as a basis for comparison.
This type can be a comparison with other companies of the same size or even with results obtained by your company in another phase.
Which brings us to the next type.
Internal
Internal benchmarking compares data from your own company.
It can be internal and performative, as we have already mentioned, but it can also analyze other aspects and even make comparisons between different areas of the company.
This type of strategy is facilitated, as access to data is possible, in addition to standardizing this data and saving time and resources for analysis.
Cooperative
The cooperative version of benchmarking is one in which companies become partners for market studies and analysis.
It is quite common for large companies from different sectors or activities, but which have something in common (the same audience or a more sustainable bias, for example) come together to share data and information that can help everyone to grow and improve results.
Generic
The generic type is one that uses a broader comparison process and can be done by comparing companies from the same or different sectors, to bring out new opportunities and perspectives.
How to do a benchmarking?
Want a step-by-step guide to benchmarking in marketing or in another area of your company?
Follow the following structure to make it really relevant:
1. Set goals
As with any other strategy, you need to start with planning .
So, the first step is to define where your company is and where it wants to go.
Define how the analyzes will be carried out, what will be researched, how the comparison will be unfolded and what are the objectives that need to be met at the end of the benchmarking.
2. Select partners or competitors to track
What will be the data for comparison?
To answer this question, firstly, it is necessary to define which companies will be analyzed.
You can go back to the benchmarking types to understand which one makes the most sense for the goals you set and then choose partners and competitors to take action.
3. Define quantitative and qualitative analysis indicators
With the partners or companies defined, the question of the previous topic can be defined: the KPIs, indicators and metrics that will be collected and analyzed.
You can choose sales results, conversion rates, churn, net sales, average ticket, closing time…
It all depends, again, on the goals.
4. Collect the data
Here, the techniques for collecting the defined data must be defined.
In addition to direct contact with companies and partners, you can also consult some market research already carried out.
Do not forget that, for the next phase, you will also need to collect your company data.
5. Make the comparative analysis
With the data then collected, comes the comparative analysis part .
Having a specialized team is a great option to optimize time and resources in this benchmarking phase.
The analysis phase must be completed with the identification of bottlenecks and improvement points, in addition to the points in which your company stands out.
It is this analysis that will determine how to proceed.
6. Develop action plans
With the analysis in hand, improvement and prioritization plans must be drawn up — and followed.
The most relevant may not be those that are the most difficult to achieve or even those that are lower in comparison to other companies, but those that will increase ROI (Return on Investment).
6 Benchmarkings to optimize your marketing results
Remember that we commented that often some data can be obtained with research and market analysis?
There are companies focused on this type of activity and there is really valuable data at your disposal.
We selected 6 of these surveys, which are important for anyone looking to benchmark in marketing .
Segment conversion benchmarking
One such example is the Lead Generation Overview developed by Leadster.
This is one of the few Brazilian studies on the subject — it is usually very difficult to find local studies.
The research was carried out with the analysis of 63 million hits on 1001 sites from different segments.
The segment with the highest conversion rate is Services, with 6.67% . The Services area has the best conversion rates, followed closely by the Educational segment. The Real Estate segment had the lowest result in the study: 2.62% conversion.
Google Ads is the channel with the highest conversion rate, 3.31%. Direct Access ranks second on the list, with 3% conversion. Organic search also appears among the channels with the best conversion rates (2.94%).
Website data benchmarking
Another interesting option for those who want to focus on benchmarking in marketing:
The report developed and published by SimilarWeb is focused on website performance metrics , such as number of visitors, channel origin and behavior during sessions.
The main channels responsible for bringing traffic (visitors) to the websites in general are the Direct and Organic channels. Benchmarking this data looking specifically at your area of activity can help you find the best way to reach your audience, as well as identify which paid channels your competitors are investing in.
Another website metric that you can track in benchmarking is the Bounce Rate. Here, once again, the need to benchmark according to your specific industry becomes clear, as the data can vary greatly between different segments.
Email Marketing Benchmarking
For your marketing benchmarking, do you also need to analyze email marketing data ?
Then you can improve your strategy by extracting information from research published by Campaign Monitor.
The average open rate is 18%, while the click-through rate is around 2.60%. It's worth checking out the specific data of your segment!
The day of the week with the best open rate and best click through rate is Friday. The worst email results usually happen on Saturdays.
(Remember to test different days and times with your contact base! This information may vary by location and area of expertise.)
Google Ads Benchmarking
If you are interested in Google Ads data , we recommend the study published on the WordStream website .
With it, you will have access to market and other companies data, rates and metrics such as CTR, CPC, CVR and CPA.
Facebook Ads Benchmarking
From the same source, we also recommend the Facebook Ads report .
The analysis presented there takes into account the last 18 months and separates the data according to the type of activity segment.
Social Media Benchmarking
The report published by RivalIQ, a social media analytics company, gathers data from Facebook , Instagram and Twitter , as well as analysis focused on each market.
- Engagement rates were flat on Facebook and Twitter and dropped on Instagram.
- Brands are posting slightly less frequently across all channels for the second year in a row.
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