Getting Started with Semrush .Trends

Semrush .Trends is a complete market and competitive analysis solution. It includes four tools and over a dozen reports that allow you to:

Analyze any market
Identify emerging trends
Uncover competitor traffic stats
Benchmark against the competition
Conduct audience research
Compare audience overlaps
Automate competitive tracking
And more

Getting started with Semrush .Trends is simple. Let’s walk through the process and explore a few reports so you can get started analyzing your market and developing a data-driven strategy.

Begin with Market Explorer

The best place to begin with .Trends is the Market Explorer tool. Market Explorer allows you to analyze any industry, market, or niche. To get started, decide how you want to define your market.

You have three options:

Create a list–This option is useful if you are familiar with your competitive landscape or want to explore a specific niche within a broader market
Find competitors–This option is useful if you aren’t familiar with the competitive landscape and want the tool to select competitors for you based on Organic presence in the SERPs
Analyze a category–This option is great if you want a broad view of an entire market or industry

Three options available on the starting page of Market Explorer

Once you select how you want to define your market, choose a location and enter competitors or industry. Let’s try the “Create List” option to analyze the US bicycle market based off Trekbikes.com.

Selecting location, competitors, and a market list's name for a test run of Market Explorer

Finally, click the Create and Analyze button to enter the Market Explorer tool.

Check general market metrics & evaluate market potential

Once you’ve defined your market and clicked the Create and Analyze button, you’ll then enter the Market Explorer tool. The first thing to note is the options at the top of the page. These include:

List selection
Date range
Custom periods
Location filter

You can change these criteria at any time to view different lists of competitors, change date ranges, or explore a different geographic location.

The list of settings available in Market Explorer after the report is created

In order to see data for a custom period (for two individual months or two periods of up to 12 months), you need to set the date range, check the “compare to” checkbox (1), and select the second date range – you can choose to compare to the “previous period” or “previous year” (2) or set the period manually (3).

Instructions on how to set up the custom time period comparison in the Market Explorer.

Now, scroll down to begin checking metrics. Start with the Market Summary section of the Market Explorer Overview Report.

The Market Summary section displaying main metrics for the created market list

The Market Summary section provides a variety of metrics that help you understand the market broadly.

You’ll discover 6 key data points:

Market Consolidation
Key Players
Market Domains
Market Traffic & Traffic Growth
Market Traffic Cost & Cost Growth
Market Size

Considering these metrics can help you evaluate potential market growth, discover threats or opportunities, gauge difficulty and cost of market entry, and more. It’s a great place to begin for an overall sense of the market.

Check the competitive landscape & analyze changes over time

After checking general market metrics and exploring growth potential with the Market Summary, scroll down to the Growth Quadrant.

The Growth Quadrant offers a layout of the competitive playing field and allows you to distinguish which players are Leaders, Established Players, Game Changers, or Niche Players based on traffic numbers and traffic growth percentages. The matrix has capacity for up to 100 domains.

you have the option to customize your view in a few different ways:

By changing the time period and location
By turning “Growth Paths” on to view market players’ growth across the selected period of time
By setting up axes to analyze competitors from different perspectives (for example, to analyze traffic quality set axis to Total Traffic and Bounce Rate; to analyze audience engagement set axis to Total traffic and Avg. Visit Duration)
By revealing or hiding certain players on the matrix
By viewing in full-screen mode or zooming in or out

Growth Quadrant widget in Market Explorer and filters you can use in it.

Switch on growth paths to view changes across time. You can also hover over the dot representing each individual player to view their specific traffic metrics.

In this screenshot you can see where you can enable growth paths and select competitors in the "Growth Quadrant" widget.

To change the dates and location for the data depicted in the Growth Quadrant, return to the top of the report and make the desired changes.

View competitors’ traffic acquisition channels

Once you’ve developed an understanding of the competitive landscape, head over to the Market Explorer Benchmarking Report to see how the top competitors drive traffic to their websites.

Begin by viewing the Market Traffic vs Selected Domains Trends graph. This graph shows traffic trends for various traffic types across your selected timeframe. Here’s a look at the total traffic for top domains from January to December 2022.

Hover over the graph called Market Traffic vs Selected Domains Trends to see metrics for a specific month

Comparing various kinds of traffic reveals the different strategies competitors use and how they change over time.

Here’s a view of Paid traffic across the same timeframe. Notice the boost in Paid traffic around October of 2022. This spike was created primarily by bicycling.com, which saw a massive increase in Paid traffic that month.

Switching between traffic types on Market Traffic vs Selected Domains Trends allows checking different dynamics.

For a side-by-side comparison of traffic breakdowns, scroll down to the Traffic Generation Strategy and Social Media Distribution Strategy graphs. These graphs reveal the distribution of traffic from the various traffic acquisition channels and popular social media platforms.

Traffic Generation Strategy and Social Media Distribution Strategy show stats of each competitor in the list

The bar at the top labeled “Market” represents the traffic totals for the entire market, making it easier to benchmark individual players against the market as a whole.

View competitors’ traffic metrics with Traffic Analytics

For a more in-depth look at individual competitor’s traffic metrics, head over to the Traffic Analytics tool. Like Market Explorer, you can enter competitors manually into the tool. Or you can import your list of competitors from Market Explorer using the Import List button.

The import list button on the right side allows exporting lists from Market Explorer into other .Trends tools like Traffic Analytics

The list will then appear on the Traffic Analytics starting page. Select the list of domains you’d like to analyze and enter the tool.

All lists are on the starting page of each tool, a little down below

At the top of the Traffic Analytics Overview Report, you’ll discover the top 5 domains on your list and a breakdown of their traffic metrics and the growth percentage over the selected timeframe.

Traffic metrics included in the Overview Report include:

Visits
Unique Visitors
Pages visited
Average Visit Duration
Bounce Rate

These metrics can help you gauge the number of visits, the growth in traffic over time, and the quality of the domain’s traffic.

The breakdown of each competitor's performance is provided in the Overview report of the Traffic Analytics tool

Next, scroll down to the Traffic Sources graph to see a side-by-side comparison of how your selected domains acquire traffic to their websites. The graph displays 8 unique traffic channels including direct, referral, organic social media, paid social media, organic search, paid search, email, and display ads.

Hover over bars on the Traffic Sources graph to see the metrics of each domain from the list.

Hover over any portion of the graph to compare domains and gain a more in-depth look at the traffic metrics for that specific channel.

Explore traffic journeys to and from competitor sites

Once you’ve explored traffic metrics for top players in your market, jump over to the Traffic Analytics Traffic Journey Report to gain a deeper understanding of how traffic travels to and from your chosen sites. This can help you understand the customer journey and identify trends in traffic that may present opportunities for your marketing strategy.

Start with the Traffic Journey graph to identify the top traffic sources sending the most traffic to the analyzed targets and 5 external domains that visitors most frequently go to after visiting your target.

Select one of the websites in the middle of the Traffic Journey graph to check it separately from other competitors

For a more detailed look at traffic journeys, scroll down to the Traffic Journey Details chart. With this chart, you can hone your search with a variety of filtering options. At the top of the chart, filter to view domains by category, such as Retail, Sports, or Finance. You can also use the tabs at the top of the section to search by Referral, Search, or Social.

Switch between different website categories and traffic sources to know more about other websites users are visiting.

Each entry in the table shows the domain’s Category, Group Traffic Split, and Group Traffic share to help you better analyze the traffic journey and understand the significance of the individual domain.

Reveal traffic details by subfolder and subdomain

With an understanding of traffic type, traffic quality, and traffic journeys, take a deeper look at traffic trends to your chosen domains based on subfolder and subdomain.

Begin by heading to the Subfolders Report in Traffic Analytics. Select the domain you’d like to review from the dropdown menu, and the tool will present a breakdown of traffic organized around the domain’s subfolders.

Subfolders report shows data for one website at a time which you can select via the dropdown menu at the top of the report

The graph shows a breakdown of traffic to top subfolders, along with the percentage of the domain's total traffic directed toward the specific subfolder.

Using the tabs at the top of the graph, you can also filter by traffic type. For example, selecting paid traffic reveals all of Trek’s paid traffic is headed to their subfolder focused on the Australian market.

Switch between traffic types to know more about websites' subfolders performance.

In the lower portion of the Subfolders Report, you’ll discover the Subfolders table, which provides a more expansive view of all subfolders. This table provides traffic data related to Traffic Share, Unique Visits, Pages Viewed, Exits, and more, along with a breakdown of traffic types.

Click on the entry for a dropdown view of the subfolder, including a traffic sources graph and a list of top pages within the specific subfolder.

The small arrow icon on the left side of each subfolder opens the dropdown menu with a more detailed report

Finally, hop over to the Subdomains Report in Traffic Analytics for a traffic breakdown for all of the chosen domain’s subdomains.

Subdomains report shows data only for one domain at a time so switch between different websites via the menu on top of the report

Here, you can see which subdomains command the most traffic and whether that traffic comes from Mobile or Desktop users.

Analyze a competitor’s top pages

With a broad understanding of your competitors’ traffic strategy and site structure, you can move over to the Traffic Analytics Top Pages Report and take a deep dive into their top-performing pages.

The Top Pages Report can reveal important insights about your competitor’s:

Most important pages
Newly launched pages
Pages gaining traction
Top promoted products
Recent offers

Begin by looking at the Insights section at the top of the report to uncover new pages and pages losing or gaining traction. You may need to click the Show Insights link to open the section.

The button for hiding or showing insights is near the name of the report and is marked with a lightning icon

Click the View More button on any of the presented pages or simply scroll down to view a table that lists the domain’s top pages ranked by Traffic Share percentage, which includes all traffic types.

You can filter the list by entering a keyword such as “check out” or “product” into the search bar. Furthermore, you can sort the report according to the data in various columns by clicking the tabs at the top of the table. You may have to scroll to the right to view all available columns.

Click on any entry inside the table to view a dropdown display revealing the traffic sources and traffic trend for the specific page.

Top pages report allows filtering results by URL and sorting them by different traffic types or other metrics.

Use Bulk Analysis to view metrics for up to 100 sites

If you need to analyze more than five domains, you can use the Bulk Analysis Report in Traffic Analytics. In this report, you can enter up to 100 domains and view their metrics in one dashboard.

Bulk Analysis report allows uploading up to 100 domains and selecting date, region, or device before or after getting the result report

Once you enter your list of domains, scroll down and view traffic metrics for each domain, including Visits, Unique Visitors, Pages visited, Visit duration, and Bounce Rate.

Scroll down the Bulk Analysis result report to see metrics for each of the requested domains

Research the market audience with One2Target

Now that you’ve done a deep dive into your competitors' traffic stats, head over to the One2Target tool to take a look at the market audience.

The 4 reports included in the One2Target tool will help you understand what kinds of individuals make up the market audience. The reports include:

Demographics
Socioeconomics
Behaviors
Audience overlap

Like Traffic Analytics, you can import a list from Market Explorer or enter up to 5 competitors to get started with your analysis.

Use the Import List function on the right side of the starting page to upload the market list from other tools

The list will then appear on the One2Target starting page. Select the list of domains you’d like to analyze and enter the tool.

Select the uploaded list via the All Lists section below

The first report you’ll encounter is the One2Target Demographics Report, which offers data related to the audiences Age, Sex, and Geo Location.

Begin by examining the Audience section. Here, you’ll find data related to audience Age and Sex, with graphs offering visuals of the breakdown among your chosen competitors.

Demographics report shows audience data for each website in a selected list

Next, scroll down to the Distribution by Country chart to understand where the audience is located across the globe.

Distribution by Country report is located below the first widget and shows where the audience comes from

After you’ve explored the age and sex breakdown of the market audience and identified the top countries where they live, head over to the One2Target Socioeconomics Report.

With this report, you can gather data related to audience households, employment status, income levels, education, and more.

Start with the Households section of the report to compare household sizes among competitors and income levels. Hover over any of the bars included in the graph for a breakdown of the audience percentage and traffic breakdown.

Socioeconomics report provides a breakdown of audience households

Then, take a look at the Employment Status and Education Level graphs. For the Employment Status graph, the icons for the top three statuses will be highlighted at the top.

Top-three options in the Employment Status widget are highlighted with orange

Finally, take a look at the One2Target Behavior Report, which offers data regarding top social media platforms, audience interests, and device preferences. Toggle between the Social Media chart and the Interests chart using the tab at the top of the section.

Behavior report displays audience most and least preferred social media or interests

Then, check the Devices graph to see how the audience engages with your chosen market domains. For a breakdown of the numbers and the total traffic numbers, just hover over the bar in the graph you’re interested in exploring.

Devices graph displays how much traffic comes to each website from the list via desktop or mobile devices

Review audience overlaps among market domains

With a good understanding of the audience’s characteristics, head over to the Audience Overlap Report in One2Target to examine overlaps among competitor audiences. Reviewing overlaps can help in a variety of ways, including identifying potential partners and pinpointing ad placement and referral opportunities.

The first section of the report presents diagrams that show overlaps among each of the domains. You’ll also discover:

The total audience for both domains
The percentage of audience overlap
The total size of overlapping audience
The size of the potential audience the chosen domain might gain

Audience Overlap domain selection allow prioritizing a specific website for this widget

Next, scroll down to the Visited Domains section of the report to view specific sites the audience also visited. Choose the filter and competitors you’d like to analyze at the top of the chart. You can also search for specific domains or keywords, or sort by category.

Select a domain a a desired category at the top of the Visited domains widget

Along with each domain, you can identify each domain’s Category, the Total and Potential Audience, and data related to the Audience Overlap for chosen sites. In this example, sites with a high Potential Audience and strong Audience Overlap might make good partners or ad venues.

Automate your competitive tracking and receive regular updates with EyeOn

With a full overview of the market, key competitors, and audiences, go to the EyeOn tool to track your competitors’ activities on an ongoing basis. The tool can track competitors for metrics such as:

New pages
Blog Posts
Google Search Ads
Social media posts
Social media engagement

On the tool start page, click the +Create List button and enter up to 20 competitors. Then click, Create.

Create a new lists in EyeOn via the blue button on the right

Once inside the tool, set up social media tracking for your chosen competitors. Click the Set up accounts button under Social Media Posts.

Set up Social Media report via the Overview section

Here, you can enter the Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter profiles for each of your competitors to track their social media activity.

Adding social profiles

After entering the social media profiles, you’d like to track, head over to the dashboard by clicking on the competitor’s name in the sidebar. Keep in mind it may take a few minutes for the tool to gather all of the metrics. Then, select your date range and whether you’d like to see the results by the weekly or daily view.

Time period and daily or weekly view filters are located under the EyeOn list name

View the Summary and Timeline section of the tool to identify trends and analyze specific activities using the information provided in the timeline.

Metrics of the Summary widget in EyeOn Timeline report is under the Summary graphs and changes depending on the selected time period

Finally, you can set up automated email reports using the Email Report Settings button in the upper right hand corner of the tool.

Set up email reports via the blue button on the top right of the EyeOn report

With this screen, you can select which lists you’d like to receive alerts for, how often you’d like to receive alerts, and what email addresses you’d like EyeOn to send them to.

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