Monitoring competitors is essential for understanding market trends, comparing brand performance, and identifying opportunities.
In Mentionlytics, you can track your competitors by creating a Tracker and adding relevant keyword rules and social profiles that represent the competitor you want to monitor.
In this article, you will learn:
How to add a competitor step-by-step
How keywords work in competitor monitoring
Best practices and examples
1. What Does It Mean to Track a Competitor?
Tracking a competitor means creating a dedicated tracker that collects:
All online conversations about the competitor
Public posts from the competitor’s social profiles (if added)
Let’s take Ryanair as an example. Typical competitors of this airline company could include:
EasyJet
Wizz Air
Jet2
British Airways
Lufthansa
You can track any competitor by adding:
Their brand name
Their products/services (e.g., "EasyJet flights")
Campaign hashtags (e.g., #ThisIsWizzAir)
Market variations (e.g., “Wizz Air UK”, “British Airways Europe”)
2. How to Add a Competitor (Step-by-Step)
Step 1: Create a Tracker
Go to Trackers.
Click Add New Tracker.
Name it clearly:
“Competitor – EasyJet”
“Competitor – Wizz Air”
“Competitor – Jet2”
This keeps competitor tracking organized.
Step 2: Add the Main Keyword (Competitor Name)
The main keyword must be the most common way people refer to that competitor.
For example:
EasyJet
Wizz Air
Jet2
British Airways
Start with the simplest form of the name. This will give you the broadest but most accurate starting point.
Step 3: Use the Test Query Tool
Before saving the keyword, click Test Query to preview results.
For example:
Testing EasyJet may show:
Mentions about EasyJet flights
Travelers’ complaints or praise
News articles
Testing Jet2 may show:
Some irrelevant results if “Jet2” appears in unrelated contexts
Mentions about Jet2 holidays memes
Airport updates
Testing helps you avoid:
Irrelevant noise
Missed mentions
Incorrect keyword structures
Step 4: Add Excluded Keywords (If Needed)
Some competitor names may appear in unrelated contexts.
Examples for Ryanair competitors:
Competitor: Jet2
Possible irrelevant results may include:
Jet engines
“Nothing beats a Jet2 Holiday” trending memes
To minimize irrelevant buzz, you can exclude terms like:
engine
sports
“Jet2 holidays”
Excluded keywords clean the results without blocking important mentions.
Step 5: Add Required Keywords with the AND Operator (Only If Needed)
If you want to monitor a specific part of your competitor’s industry, you can add 1–2 required keywords to focus on a specific product/service.
For example:
Competitor: Wizz Air
Required keyword: delays AND fares
→ Focuses on Wizz Air mentions related to delays and fares.
Competitor: EasyJet
Required keyword: Greece AND flights
→ Shows mentions specifically about EasyJet flights related to Greece.
Note: Do not add too many required keywords with the AND operator. 1–2 is the maximum recommended; more than that restricts results too much.
Step 6: Add Additional Keywords with the OR Operator (Only If Needed)
Use the OR operator when you want to include different variations, related terms, or alternative names for the same competitor, product, or topic. This expands your search so the keyword can capture more types of relevant mentions.
For example:
Competitor: Wizz Air
Optional keywords: “Cheap flights” OR Delay
→ Captures all major variations of how people refer to the brand.
Best Practice: Use OR only for closely related synonyms, variations, or abbreviations.
This feature allows you to add up to 15 optional keywords under the same rule. Avoid adding unrelated terms, as this may bring noise to your results.
Step 7: Add Variations Using the OR Operator in the Main Keyword (Add-on)
Some Ryanair competitors have multiple common variations of their brand name.
For example:
Competitor: Wizz Air
Variations: “Wizz Air Airlines” OR WizzAir
Competitor: British Airways
Variations: British Airways OR “BA Airlines”
Competitor: EasyJet
Variations: EasyJet OR “Easy Jet”
In PRO and higher-tier plans, the Main Keyword OR Variations feature allows up to 4 variations per keyword.
Step 8: Add Competitor Social Profiles (Optional but Recommended)
Adding social profiles allows Mentionlytics to fetch public posts from these profiles, even if they do NOT contain the keyword you monitor.
This is useful for benchmarking:
Marketing campaigns
Social engagement
Campaign launches
Customer reactions
For example, regarding Ryanair competitors, you can add:
EasyJet Social Profiles:
EasyJet Facebook page
@easyJet on X/Twitter
EasyJet YouTube channel
Wizz Air Social Profiles:
Wizz Air Facebook page
@wizzair on X
Wizz Air YouTube channel
Important Clarification: Keywords and social profiles are not connected. Adding a profile does NOT mean the system searches ONLY inside that profile for the keyword.
A tracker collects:
Keyword mentions (web + all public sources)
Posts from added social profiles
They work together, but they do not filter each other.