4 Best Ways to Assess Competitors in Healthcare Marketing

A competitor benchmark grid, SEO analysis, PPC strategy review, and conversion performance audit are top four methods to assess competitors in healthcare organization marketing in 2026. Understanding your competition is vital in healthcare marketing as it helps you spot growth opportunities, improve messaging, and allocate your budget more effectively with knowledge of all the dos and don'ts. A smart competitor analysis component of the healthcare marketing strategy can give your clinic or practice a real edge. Check out the top ways to assess your competitors, plus, learn why they matter, backed by data.

Build a Competitor Benchmark Grid

Start by listing your direct competitors which can be other clinics or practices. List their key marketing activities: PPC, content marketing, social presence, patient reviews, SEO, and so on. Use a competitor analysis framework to compare your performance across these categories. Invoca recommends building a checklist or grid to visualize gaps and see where competitors are outspending or outperforming you. 

Why this matters

You’ll clearly see strategic areas to either double down or defend based on the moves by your competition. 

Conduct a SEO Audit

Trust and E‑E‑A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) impact SEO strongly. Therefore, you should especially evaluate the quality of their medical content. Also use SEO tools to check:

• Domain authority of competing websites

• Number of referring domains

• Keyword overlap / ranking positions

• Traffic estimates

Why this matters

High domain authority and strong backlinks from competitors indicate that they’re investing heavily in SEO, potentially capturing high-intent organic traffic. It especially matters considering findings of RevenueBoomers that 53% of healthcare website traffic comes from organic search. 

Netpeak US can run a full competitive SEO audit and build a data-driven SEO strategy that reinforces your E‑E‑A‑T signals and drives more high-intent patient traffic for healthcare organizations in the United States. 

Study PPC Campaigns 

Look at how competitors are using paid ads: which keywords they target, what their ad copy says, and how aggressive their bidding is. Combine this with conversion benchmarks. According to WebFX, average conversion rates in healthcare are around 6.8% industry-wide depending on the sub‑sector, so you can take this intel into account. 

Why this matters

Insights about competitor PPC spend and targeting helps you estimate how competitive certain keywords are and where you might need to adjust your bids or messaging.

Assess Conversion Performance

Even if you can’t see their internal dashboards, you can estimate performance based on publicly available data. Use benchmarks to make rough comparisons. Ruler Analytics reports an average conversion rate of 5.6% for healthcare practices, while top performers can reach up to 21.1%. That’s how you can reveal if your competitors are likely doing something significantly different in their funnel or patient acquisition process than you.

Why this matters

This step can help you benchmark your own performance and identifies if competitors are significantly more efficient at converting interest into patients.

Final Notes

Competitor analysis in healthcare isn’t just a one-off task. Treat it as a continuous, data-driven discipline that helps you make smarter decisions about SEO, PPC, and patient acquisition. At Netpeak US, we specialize in health‑sector competitive research to help practices outsmart their digital rivals and grow effectively in the US healthcare market.

FAQ

How often should I run a competitor analysis in healthcare marketing?

Every 3–6 months is ideal. It’s enough time for strategies to shift but not so long that you miss major changes.

What tools should I use for competitor analysis?

Use SEO tools like Ahrefs, Serpstat or SEMrush, PPC tools like Google Ads Auction, and review platforms like Google Reviews.

What’s the biggest “hidden” insight I can get from competitor analysis?

Public conversion benchmarks provide unique intel as they can reveal if your competitors are converting at unusually high rates.