Key Takeaways for SaaS Teams
- Most B2B SaaS teams struggle to turn raw Semrush data into conquesting campaigns that reliably drive net-new ARR.
- A structured 7-step framework sequences Semrush tools to map competitor keywords, ad copy, backlinks, and AI visibility into targeted paid, SEO, and PR campaigns.
- Each analysis step produces outputs tied to pricing, problem, or review buyer-intent buckets that inform campaign builds and shorten CAC payback.
- Accurate CRM attribution with GCLID tracking connects Semrush insights to closed-won pipeline and proves real revenue impact.
- If executing this workflow feels overwhelming, schedule a call to convert your Semrush exports into a prioritized roadmap.
Prerequisites and Key SaaS Definitions
Confirm a few essentials before you run this workflow. You need a Semrush Guru or Business subscription for Keyword Gap and Traffic Analytics, at least one confirmed competitor domain, CRM access with GCLID tracking enabled, and a working understanding of buyer-intent stages.
Net-new ARR is annual recurring revenue from customers who did not exist in the prior period. It excludes expansion and renewal revenue. CAC payback period is the number of months required to recover the fully loaded cost of acquiring one customer from gross margin. Competitor conquesting is the practice of targeting a competitor’s branded and category keywords in paid search and SEO to intercept buyers who are actively evaluating or frustrated with that competitor’s product.
The 7-Step Semrush Competitor Analysis Framework
This workflow follows seven steps in sequence. Step 1 uses Domain Overview for baseline benchmarking. Step 2 uses the Organic Research Competitors report for traffic overlap. Step 3 runs Keyword Gap analysis with commercial intent modifiers. Step 4 uses Advertising Research for ad copy and paid keyword benchmarking. Step 5 uses Backlink Analytics for referral and PR gap identification. Step 6 uses the AI Visibility Toolkit for modern discovery gaps. Step 7 uses Traffic Analytics to separate paid versus organic performance. Each step builds on the last and produces an export that feeds the conquesting campaign build.
Step 1: Domain Overview for Fast SaaS Competitor Benchmarking
Purpose: Establish a baseline authority and traffic snapshot for each competitor before you invest time in deeper reports.
Exact clicks: Go to Semrush → Competitive Research → Domain Overview. Enter the competitor’s root domain. Set the database to the target country. Review Authority Score, estimated organic search traffic, estimated paid search traffic, and total backlink count.
SaaS decision criteria: A competitor with an Authority Score above 50 and more than 10,000 monthly organic visits deserves full analysis across all seven steps. A competitor below those thresholds may only need Keyword Gap and Advertising Research review. Record the organic-to-paid traffic ratio. A ratio skewed heavily toward paid indicates the competitor has not built durable organic moats, which creates an SEO opportunity.
Common mistake: Many teams treat Authority Score as a proxy for keyword difficulty. Authority Score measures domain strength, not ranking competition for a specific term. Always validate individual keyword difficulty in Step 3.
Step 2: Organic Research Competitors with Traffic Overlap Filters
Purpose: Confirm which domains compete for the same organic keyword universe and quantify the overlap before you run Keyword Gap.
Exact clicks: Go to Semrush → Competitive Research → Organic Research. Enter your own domain and select the Competitors tab. Semrush surfaces domains with the highest keyword overlap. Competing Domains and Traffic Share by Domains reports identify which competitors capture the most organic traffic for high-value commercial keywords, which validates which domains to carry into the Keyword Gap step.
Decision point: Select the top three to five competitors by Common Keywords count. These domains share the most keyword territory with your site and represent the highest-value conquesting targets. Export this list before you move to Step 3.
Step 3: Keyword Gap Analysis with Commercial Intent Modifiers
Purpose: Surface the specific keywords competitors rank for that your domain does not, filtered to commercial and high-intent terms only.
Exact clicks: Go to Semrush → Competitive Research → Keyword Gap. Enter your domain in the first field and up to four competitor domains in the remaining fields. Select Organic keywords and click Compare. In the results table, select the Missing tab, where competitors rank and you do not, and the Weak tab, where competitors outrank you. The Keyword Gap tool’s Missing and Weak views, combined with search intent filters, surface competitor keyword opportunities including commercial terms.
Apply commercial intent filters: Use the Include filter to add modifiers such as pricing, cost, alternative, alternatives, vs, review, reviews, demo, trial, and compare. High-intent keywords for B2B SaaS often contain commercial modifiers such as pricing, cost, quote, demo, trial, vs, alternative, and comparison, which can be used to build include filters in Semrush Keyword Magic Tool or Organic Research reports.
Intent bucket mapping: Sort the filtered output into three buckets. Pricing intent includes keywords containing pricing, cost, price, how much, and TCO. Problem intent includes keywords containing alternative, alternatives, cancel, down, and support or complaint terms. Review intent includes keywords containing review, reviews, vs, compare, comparison, and best. Each bucket maps to a distinct landing page type and ad copy angle in the conquesting campaign.
Example output: A keyword gap analysis for a project management SaaS might surface “[Competitor] pricing 2026,” “[Competitor] alternative for remote teams,” and “[Competitor] vs [Your Brand].” These terms are often missing from the target domain’s organic rankings. High-intent keywords in B2B SaaS categories include examples such as “Trello alternative with time tracking,” “Monday.com vs Notion for agencies,” and “Asana enterprise pricing discount,” which appear in competitor organic and paid results.
Step 4: Advertising Research for Competitor Ad Copy and Traffic Sources
Purpose: Identify the exact paid keywords competitors bid on, the ad copy angles they use, and the landing pages they send traffic to. These insights provide a direct template for conquesting ad builds.
Exact clicks: Go to Semrush → Competitive Research → Advertising Research and enter the competitor domain. Open the Positions tab to view every keyword the competitor bids on in paid search, along with average CPC. The Positions tab reveals the exact keywords a competitor is bidding on in paid search along with average CPC data for each keyword, allowing SaaS marketers to export the list and identify high-intent conquesting opportunities.
Next, open the Ads Copies tab. The Ads Copies tab displays a competitor’s active ad creatives and the number of keywords triggering each ad, enabling direct benchmarking of messaging, value propositions, and CTAs used in paid campaigns. Record headline patterns, value proposition language, and CTA copy. Note which ads trigger the highest keyword count, because these are the competitor’s highest-investment creatives and the most important to counter.
Then open the Pages tab. The Pages tab lists the specific landing pages competitors use for their paid ads, including estimated traffic volumes and the number of keywords each page ranks for in paid search results. Identify whether competitors send pricing-intent traffic to a dedicated pricing comparison page or a generic homepage. A homepage destination creates a conversion gap your team can exploit with a purpose-built conquesting page.
Execution Support: Turning Semrush Insights into Live Campaigns
Many teams can pull Semrush data but stall when they try to turn keyword gap exports, ad copy benchmarks, and backlink targets into live campaigns. Translating these findings into paid search builds, SEO content, and PR outreach requires B2B SaaS-specific execution experience. SaaSHero builds and manages the full conquesting stack, from comparison page architecture to GCLID-to-CRM attribution, for B2B SaaS teams at every growth stage.
See how SaaSHero converts your findings into net-new ARR in a discovery call.
After you secure execution support or define your internal plan, you can continue into backlink and AI visibility analysis to complete the 7-step workflow.
Step 5: Backlink Analytics for Referral and PR Gap Identification
Purpose: Identify the referring domains and publication types that send authoritative backlinks to competitors but not to your domain. This work creates a prioritized PR and link-building outreach list.
Exact clicks: Go to Semrush → Link Building → Backlink Analytics. Enter a competitor domain and select the Referring Domains tab. Filter by Authority Score 50+ to isolate high-value sources and export the list. Repeat this process for each competitor identified in Step 2. Then run a Backlink Gap analysis in Link Building → Backlink Gap to surface domains linking to competitors but not to your site.
SaaS-specific filter: Within the referring domains export, tag sources by type. Use tags for review platforms such as G2, Capterra, and Gartner, industry publications, integration partner directories, and VC portfolio pages. Review platform links carry direct buyer-intent traffic. Prioritize outreach to any review aggregator where competitors have a profile and your brand does not.
Step 6: AI Visibility Toolkit for Modern Discovery Gaps
Purpose: Identify the AI-generated search prompts and discovery queries where competitors appear but your brand does not. These gaps affect top-of-funnel visibility in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.
Exact clicks: Go to Semrush → AI Visibility Toolkit. Enter a competitor domain, select the Competitors tab, and review the Missing tab and Prompts option. The Missing tab and Prompts option reveal exact AI prompts that competitors appear for but the analyzed domain does not, aiding identification of gap keywords with commercial intent.
Revenue connection: Higher AI referral volumes indicate stronger visibility signals that SaaS marketers can prioritize to reduce payback periods through lower-cost organic acquisition. Prompts where competitors appear for category-level queries such as “best HR onboarding software for mid-market” represent content creation opportunities that compound over time without incremental paid spend.
Step 7: Traffic Analytics to Separate Paid and Organic Performance
Purpose: Quantify what percentage of a competitor’s total traffic comes from paid versus organic channels and identify which specific pages drive the most paid traffic. These insights inform budget allocation decisions for your own conquesting campaigns.
Exact clicks: Go to Semrush → Competitive Research → Traffic Analytics. Enter a competitor domain and review the Overview tab for channel distribution. Semrush’s Traffic & Market Toolkit analyzes a competitor’s traffic channel distribution across organic, paid, social, referral, direct, and AI sources to provide marketers a channel-level view of demand acquisition.
Decision criteria: A competitor deriving more than 40% of traffic from paid search depends heavily on ad spend. That pattern signals that organic conquesting content can capture their audience at a lower long-term CAC. A competitor with dominant organic traffic has built content moats that require a longer SEO investment horizon. In that scenario, prioritize paid conquesting in the short term while you build organic assets in parallel.
Measurement & Validation: Connecting Semrush Data to Net-New ARR
Semrush surfaces the opportunity, and CRM attribution confirms the revenue. Every conquesting campaign requires GCLID auto-tagging enabled in Google Ads, with the GCLID parameter passed through the landing page form and stored as a hidden field in HubSpot or Salesforce. This setup creates a direct link between the ad click and the closed-won opportunity and allows optimization based on which keywords and ad copy angles produce customers, not just leads.
Build a Looker Studio dashboard that pulls from Google Ads for cost, clicks, and conversions, from the CRM for pipeline created, pipeline closed, and ARR, and from Semrush for exported keyword rankings. This dashboard should use a 90-day lookback window for B2B SaaS attribution, because the average enterprise sales cycle exceeds 30 days and last-click attribution within a 7-day window systematically undercounts the contribution of top-of-funnel conquesting keywords.
Even with a 90-day window, common attribution challenges in B2B such as multi-device journeys, offline sales conversations, and dark funnel touchpoints like podcasts, LinkedIn organic, and peer referrals will create gaps in your data. Acknowledge these gaps in reporting by presenting both last-touch and linear attribution models side by side. Anchor executive reporting on pipeline influenced and net-new ARR closed rather than click-level metrics.
Advanced Variations for Mature SaaS Teams
Multi-competitor batch analysis: Run Steps 3 and 4 simultaneously against all five competitor domains identified in Step 2. Export all Keyword Gap results into a single sheet, tag each keyword by competitor source, and sort by search volume in descending order. Keywords appearing in three or more competitor datasets represent category-level terms with the highest conquesting priority.
Negative keyword list building: From the Advertising Research Positions export in Step 4, isolate all competitor brand-name-only keywords with navigational intent, such as users searching for the login page. Add these as exact-match negatives in every conquesting campaign. This filter removes wasted spend on users who have no intent to switch and concentrates budget on pricing, problem, and review intent modifiers.
Landing page testing calendar integration: Map each intent bucket from Step 3 to a quarterly landing page test. In Q1, run a pricing comparison page A/B test, such as headline versus TCO table lead. In Q2, test a problem or alternative page, such as a pain-led headline versus a switch-and-save offer. In Q3, test a review or validation page, such as G2 badge placement above versus below the fold. Tie each test cycle to the 90-day attribution window so results reflect closed revenue, not just form fills.
Summary & Next Steps Checklist
Use this checklist to confirm the workflow is complete before you launch a conquesting campaign.
- Domain Overview baseline recorded for all target competitors
- Top three to five competitors confirmed by keyword overlap in Organic Research
- Keyword Gap export filtered by pricing, problem, and review modifiers and sorted into intent buckets
- Advertising Research Positions and Ads Copies tabs exported and ad copy angles documented
- Backlink Gap analysis complete with PR outreach list prioritized by Authority Score
- AI Visibility Toolkit Missing prompts identified and mapped to content calendar
- Traffic Analytics channel split recorded and budget allocation decision made
- GCLID tracking verified end to end from ad click to CRM opportunity
- Looker Studio dashboard live with 90-day attribution window
- Negative keyword list built from navigational-intent brand terms
Maturity-level guidance: Seed-stage teams under $1M ARR should run Steps 1, 3, and 4 only and focus on one competitor and one intent bucket per quarter. Series A and B teams should run all seven steps across three to five competitors and operate parallel paid and SEO conquesting tracks. Scale-up teams should automate the export and tagging workflow and integrate Semrush API data directly into their BI stack for continuous monitoring.
If the workflow above surfaces more opportunities than your team has bandwidth to execute, SaaSHero provides the full paid media and CRO execution layer, from conquesting campaign builds to comparison page design and CRM attribution setup.
Bring your Semrush exports to a discovery call and SaaSHero’s team will map them to a prioritized conquesting roadmap in the first session.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to complete this 7-step workflow for the first time?
A first-run analysis covering three competitors across all seven steps typically takes four to six hours for a marketer already familiar with the Semrush interface. Most of that time sits in Steps 3 and 4, where Keyword Gap filtering and Advertising Research export review require manual intent-bucket tagging of keyword lists. Subsequent runs against the same competitor set take one to two hours because the baseline benchmarks from Step 1 and the competitor list from Step 2 remain stable quarter over quarter. Teams that build a shared Google Sheet template for the export-and-tag process in Step 3 usually cut repeat-run time by about 50%.
Which team roles should own each step of this workflow?
Steps 1 and 2, Domain Overview and Organic Research, fit best with an SEO manager or growth analyst who can interpret authority and traffic trends. Steps 3 and 7, Keyword Gap and Traffic Analytics, require collaboration between the SEO lead and the paid search manager, because the keyword outputs feed both organic content and paid campaign builds. Step 4, Advertising Research, should sit with the paid search manager, with input from the copywriter who will write conquesting ad copy. Steps 5 and 6, Backlink Analytics and AI Visibility Toolkit, are owned by the content or PR lead. The measurement and attribution work in the Measurement section requires a marketing operations or RevOps resource with CRM access. Founders running lean teams can consolidate all steps into a single analyst role, but the CRM attribution setup should always involve someone with direct HubSpot or Salesforce admin access.
How does this workflow change for a seed-stage SaaS versus a Series B scale-up?
Seed-stage teams typically face two constraints, which are limited Semrush subscription tier and limited bandwidth to execute against a large keyword list. For seed-stage companies, prioritize Steps 1, 3, and 4 against one primary competitor. Focus the Keyword Gap output on the 20 highest-volume, lowest-difficulty keywords in the problem intent bucket. These keywords surface frustrated competitor users who are actively searching for alternatives and often convert at higher rates with lower ad spend. Series B scale-ups should run all seven steps across five competitors, operate parallel paid and SEO tracks, and integrate Semrush data into a BI dashboard for continuous monitoring rather than quarterly manual reviews. The 90-day attribution window and multi-touch reporting become critical at Series B, where board reporting requires defensible ARR attribution.
How frequently should this analysis be rerun?
The full 7-step workflow should be rerun on a quarterly cadence. Competitor keyword rankings, ad copy, and backlink profiles shift meaningfully over 90-day periods, especially in high-velocity SaaS categories where competitors launch new features, adjust pricing, or run seasonal campaigns. Steps 4 and 7, Advertising Research and Traffic Analytics, can be monitored monthly with a lighter review, because paid search ad copy and channel mix changes are the fastest-moving signals. The AI Visibility Toolkit in Step 6 should be checked monthly given the pace of change in AI search behavior in 2026. Keyword Gap in Step 3 is the most stable and can remain on a quarterly schedule unless a major competitor launches a new product or pricing tier.
What should I do if Semrush shows low data volume for my competitors?
Low data volume in Semrush typically occurs when a competitor is a small or niche player, operates primarily in a non-English-speaking market, or relies heavily on direct and dark-funnel channels rather than search. In these cases, switch the Semrush database to the competitor’s primary country if it differs from your default setting. This change alone often surfaces significantly more keyword and traffic data. For competitors with genuinely low search footprints, shift the analysis emphasis to Step 4, Advertising Research, and Step 5, Backlink Analytics, which can surface paid keyword and referral data even when organic rankings are thin. Supplement Semrush data with manual SERP reviews for the 10 to 15 highest-priority commercial keywords in your category to confirm which competitors appear in both organic and paid positions, and use that SERP presence as a proxy for intent validation when Semrush volume data is insufficient.