Analyzing a competitor: Importance of Search Traffic from the perspective of a competitive intelligence or market intelligence professional with Sean Campbell and Scott Swigart of Cascade Insights Look at website statistics, Google trends, ad planner tools, key word examples, site statistics, overall traffic and regionally to determine how true a company's growth pattern really is. When companies are doing research, most of the time they're faced with new market, new trend, new customers. Look at ecosystem to determine who are the players, are they growing, do they have momentum? Determine what percentage of an average sales process is impacted by web traffic.