Imagine your marketer got sick and you have to do a competitor analysis by yourself. You need this information to elaborate your unique selling proposition but cannot find suitable statistics. To prevent such situations from happening, we have collected 24 tools for analytics, content creation and planning that you can use for free. We also highlighted the limitations of free plans.
Web analytics
The section includes tools for competitor analysis and traffic tracking.
1. Crunchbase, a service to research competitors
Information for market research can be obtained here. You will find data on the number of employees in the company, annual revenue, investments, key development points and the latest news.
Limitations: with a free plan, you cannot see investors, get contacts of a decision maker, export search results.
2. Owler, a service to research competitors
Owler is better tailored for midsize companies, whereas Crunchbase audience is small businesses. Owler is also easier to use, but does not include company management contacts and data export options.
Limitations: You can only study five companies and see the top three competitors. Financial and employee data is private.
3. BigSpy, a library of advertisements
Here you can see what ads are being used by competitors on Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, AdMob, Twitter, Pinterest, Yahoo. Big Spy also has search filters such as call to action.
Limitations: There are five searches per day and only on Facebook.
4. SimilarWeb, a resource to analyze traffic
The app is a resource for analyzing traffic sources of a website or an application page.
In SimilarWeb, you can see data on direct clicks, links, search engines, social networks, mail and banner ads. This will help you understand which promotion channels you should use.
Limitations: You cannot compare more than two resources. Data for three years, detailed analysis of the company, application, audience, industry are not available. There is no export option.
5. Facebook Business Suite Insights
It is a tool for launching advertising campaigns, but it can be used to analyze your target audience.
Here you can find out the demographic data of visitors to the advertising page, their geographic location and interests.
Limitations: access to statistics is free.
6. Facebook Ad Library
The tool helps you understand which promotion channels and ad formats your competitors are using. For search, you need to set criteria to see ads for a specific brand or product. You can watch ads on Facebook or Instagram.
Limitations: Facebook Ad Library is completely free.
7. Serpstat, a service for analyzing domains or web pages
The site owner can check the visibility of the source or find out how competitors are promoting. Serpstat will give you a list of similar resources and will plot the dynamics of visibility, traffic and number of key words. You can also find out the amount of SEO traffic from Google for different countries.
Limitations: site auditing tools are blocked, teamwork, domain comparison tables, page audits and reports cannot be generated.
8. Ahrefs, an analogue of Serpstat
One of the differences is that Ahrefs fetches data from ten search engines, Serpstat applies data from two.
This tool will check the site for more than 100 errors, find broken backlinks, keywords and phrases that drive more traffic. After that, it will become clear how to improve your site ranking.
Limitations: Only your own website can be analyzed for free.
9. Website Grader, a simple tool for initial site analysis
Website Grader evaluates a site according to four criteria: performance, SEO, mobile, and security. The score is based on the loading speed, the quality of meta tags, page indexing, the performance of the mobile version, and the security of the site. After verification, the site owner receives recommendations for optimization.
Limitations: Website Grader is completely free.
10. Google Trends, a service for analyzing trends in search queries
Here you can track the geography of interest in the product and identify the seasonality of the product. Google Trends is also useful for understanding the level of popularity of your product, company and brand compared to competitors.
Limitations: Google Trends is completely free.
A tip for you: for CS-Cart and Multi-Vendor owners, a prerequisite for learning website analytics is installing Google Analytics Enhanced Ecommerce plugin. You can track the user behaviour, and get advanced reports with it.
Mobile analytics
The section includes tools for analyzing competitors and tracking application traffic.
11. Branch, a tool for tracking web resources and mobile applications
The owner can track the traffic sources of the application and collect analytics on events. An important advantage of Branch is the ability to create deep links.
Limitations: the free plan is valid up to 10 thousand MAU (Monthly Active Users). If the MAU is exceeded, it will cost $ 5 per thousand users. The free plan is sufficient at the initial stage, but it is possible to request a demo version.
12. AppFollow, a service for working with the App Store and Google Play
Here you can moderate reviews and automate responses for your application, as well as analyze competitors. To promote the application, AppFollow offers tools for working with keywords and ASO, tracking downloads and deletions of the application.
Limitations: in the free version, you can only compare two competitors and run no more than one application. The maintenance includes a monthly package of key words and responses to reviews. If you need more, you can use the trial version for 10 days.
13. AppMagic, a service for researching competing applications
It is a convenient tool to classify applications by type, geography, and tags. You can find out the information on the competitor app revenue and downloads. In AppMagic, you can compare up to 100 apps at the same time and see the fastest growing apps using the Top Trending Chart option. The service can measure Featuring – it is the effectiveness of the application promotion from the platform side.
Limitations: Without a Premium subscription, you will not receive email notifications. Also, you will not have access to the Top Soft Launches table to find out about the application before release, and the Similarity Graph to find similar applications.
14. AppsFlyer, a platform for analyzing mobile application traffic
The service measures in-app ad revenue and correlates it with the reason for the install. The website owner can analyze ad campaigns, partners and channels and choose the best one. You can track traffic from social networks, email, SMS and QR codes. AppsFlyer includes deep linking when the banner leads not just to the store, but to the application. The service also publishes benchmarks: for example, the average retention rates for similar applications.
Limitations: Zero plan does not include fraud protection, audience segmentation tool, and reporting on installs and in-app internal events such as purchases.
15. Sensor Tower, a tool for monitoring applications in the App Store and Google Play
It is useful in evaluating the effectiveness of advertising campaigns, finding keywords for promotion and market research. The free profile includes metrics such as visibility, internationalization, downloads, key words, positive and negative reviews.
Limitations: if you need to see the income of the application, the time spent by users and demographic data – there is a demo version.
Tip for you: if you still don’t have a mobile app, think about PWAjet, an innovative mobile app solution from Simtech Development using Progressive Web App and Single Page Application technologies. It doesn’t require building an app from scratch and can be launched in three days.
Content creation
The section includes tools for developing presentations, visuals, creating videos for social networks, and checking texts.
16. Canva, a graphics editor
A marketer can design reports and presentations in it. A designer can develop typography, and a content manager can create images and animations for social networks. Canva has a huge library of templates, you can find the right one by keywords. Here you can work in a team, there is cloud storage.
Limitations: in the free version, you cannot change the size of the canvas after it has already been created, adjust the size of the downloaded file, or delete the background.
17. Crello, a graphic editor
It has the same set of options as Canva, but the free versions are different. With Crello, you can resize the canvas, remove the background, or replace it.
Limitations: Only five designs available per month. Additional ones can be received as a bonus for an invited friend or you can get a trial for a week. You cannot work in a team without a subscription.
18. SUPA, a video maker
With SUPA, you can create videos for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or Youtube. There are templates for slideshows, infographics and animations.
Limitations: you cannot make videos in HD and Full HD, the logo in the corner cannot be removed, and the video length should be no more than 40 seconds.
19. Beautiful.ai, a tool for creating presentations
It automatically picks the items you want. For example, it changes the color of the text depending on the background. There is the ability to import from PowerPoint. The app has integration with Dropbox, Slack and Google Drive.
Limitations: you cannot upload your own font, remove the watermark from the presentation and analyze the actions of viewers with slides.
20. Hemingway App, a service for improving the text
Hemingway does not correct grammatical errors, but helps to make the text easier to read. It highlights the passive voice, complex phrases, and adverbs.
Limitations: Hemingway is completely free.
21. Later, a platform for planning publications
Here you can schedule posts on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Also in Later, you can analyze what time it is best to publish.
Limitations: the free plan includes one user and 30 posts in each of the social networks. Analytics is not available for all social networks except Instagram.
22. Buffer, a publishing scheduling platform
Here you can schedule posts on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. There are tools for analyzing post type, time and frequency of posts.
Limitations: the free plan includes three accounts, for each of which you can save a queue of ten posts. Analytics and reporting tools are not available.
23. BuzzSumo is a search engine for popular content
The tool looks for popular posts on the web, Facebook, YouTube and backlinks. It helps you understand trends, find influencers, and develop a content plan.
Limitations: the free plan includes 10 searches per month and statistics for the year. This is not enough for work, but a 30-day trial gives 100 searches.
24. Postoplan, a platform for scheduling publications in social networks and messengers
Postoplan connects to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, WordPress, Telegram, Slack, Google My Business, and WordPress. An image editor is also available.
Limitations: only one account is available in each of the services except Instagram and WhatsApp. The term for scheduling a post is no more than a week.
Closing
The tools can be expensive, and finding the right one that is free takes time. We hope this collection will save you a few hours.
We also know how to save time on improving your eCommerce perception with users. We are +16 years in customizing CS-Cart and Multi-Vendor and helped our customers to increase sales and improve the functionality of their sites.