Benchmark marketing

Companies want to be better than competitors. How do they pursue this? One of the methods you use to do this is benchmark marketing. In this article, we talk about what benchmark marketing is all about. In addition, we tell you what categories there are and what it can mean for optimizing a Web site.

What is it?

Benchmarks are reference points you use to measure a company’s performance against the performance of other companies. The benchmarks compare proprietary processes, products and the operation of policies. Then you contrast it with competitor data or the overall market. Benchmark marketing is primarily used to compare customer satisfaction, cost and quality.

Benchmarking is a method of objectively evaluating a company’s digital marketing activities. An assessment of existing digital marketing activities takes place. Usable data includes such things as: how often the website is visited and how often it is clicked.

There are two core categories of benchmarking:

  • Internal: Comparing the internal structure. This form does not consider competitors. Internal benchmarking includes performance and processes. You contrast these with other parts of the company such as teams and business units.
  • External: Comparing one’s own brand to that of other companies. These can be competitors, but they also include the overall industry.

Just named core categories you use in three ways:

  • Process benchmarking → This type of benchmarking is about better understanding current processes and comparing performance against internal and external benchmarks. It’s about finding and optimizing areas of improvement.
  • Strategic benchmarking → This way compares strategies, a company’s business approach and business models. This aims to strengthen strategic planning and determine options. You compare these outcomes internally.
  • Performance benchmarking → This way involves collecting information that indicates how successful a company is in terms of results (from revenue to customer satisfaction). You also compare these outcomes internally or externally.

Each method of benchmarking has the same essential purpose. Namely, identifying the gap between performance expectations and actual performance. Discovering new opportunities, by the way, is part of this goal. Outcomes include: making processes more efficient, reducing costs, generating more organic traffic and higher conversions.

How does it work?

Thus, while benchmarking, it is important to collect enough data. It is important to evaluate the marketing activities that are most important. Examples include: social media, emails, website and/or website analytics.

Next, it is important to use the right statistics. There are an enormous number of options to obtain data from. Still, it is important to use only a small number. Indeed, the benchmark should be detailed, clear and concise.

Benchmarking and SEO

Within SEO, you use benchmarking by comparing SEO benchmarks against competitors. It is important to initially define keywords. After this, you analyze these keywords. It is crucial to ask yourself which keywords are performing well.

Besides keywords, an important benchmark for SEO is the technical part. Compare website loading speed with competitors. It is additionally valuable to compare mobile compatibility with competitors.

The third benchmark of importance for SEO is backlink analysis. It is important to have relevant and quality links on your website. The presence or absence of these factors is determined during the analysis. After this, you compare these results with those of competitors.

In short, once the differences of the above points relative to competitors have been identified, you can get to work. You pick the low-hanging fruit first, of course. It then identifies any improvements that are still feasible. Ultimately, you use this information to optimize the Web site. This could potentially lead to a positive effect on organic traffic generated through the website!


Frequently Asked Questions

What is Benchmark Marketing?

Benchmarks involve comparing your company’s processes and performance with those of competing companies or possibly the entire market. Benchmark marketing is generally used to compare quality, cost and customer satisfaction.

What is the impact of Benchmark Marketing on SEO?

Benchmarking within SEO is used to benchmark your chosen search terms and their results against your competitors use. You can also do this with other SEO aspects such as the loading speed of your pages and the relevance of backlinks.

Senior SEO-specialist

Ralf van Veen

Senior SEO-specialist
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With this broad experience within SEO, I have developed the SEO course and helped hundreds of companies with improved findability in Google in a sustainable and transparent way. For this you can consult my portfolio, references and collaborations.

This article was originally published on 22 March 2024. The last update of this article was on 22 March 2024. The content of this page was written and approved by Ralf van Veen. Learn more about the creation of my articles in my editorial guidelines.