SEO
Semrush Competitive Intelligence & Traffic & Market (2026)
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Where the core Semrush tools show you a competitor’s keywords, the competitive intelligence suite — now called the Traffic & Market Toolkit (you’ll still see it called “.Trends” in older guides) — shows you their whole traffic picture: every channel, not just search. For anyone doing market research or planning where to compete, this is the part that turns SEO data into business strategy.
What’s in the competitive intelligence suite
The Traffic & Market Toolkit is a paid add-on that sits on top of whichever base plan you’re on, and adds a few genuinely different tools:
- Traffic Analytics — estimated total traffic for any domain, broken down by channel (direct, referral, search, social, paid). This is how you see that a rival gets 60% of its traffic from, say, referral partnerships you’d never spot in a keyword report.
- Market Explorer — a top-down view of an entire market: the main players, their share, and where the growth is. The fastest way to size up a niche before entering it.
- One2Target — audience data: demographics, behaviour and the other sites your market visits.
- EyeOn — monitors what competitors publish and promote, so you see their moves as they happen.
How to actually use it
Three practical plays I run with this data:
- Find the channel you’re missing. Run Traffic Analytics on your three best competitors. If they all pull heavy referral or social traffic and you don’t, you’ve found a growth lever that has nothing to do with keywords.
- Size a market before you commit. Before launching in a new niche, Market Explorer tells you whether it’s growing or saturated, and who you’d be fighting. It’s saved me from entering dead markets more than once.
- Watch the leaders. Point EyeOn at the biggest player in your space and let their content and campaign calendar become your early-warning system.
Is it worth the add-on cost?
Honest answer: it’s an extra layer on top of your base plan — currently around $289/user/month — so only add it if competitive and market research is a real part of your work: agencies, consultants, and anyone planning market entry. That’s more than most people’s entire base subscription, which is exactly why it shouldn’t be an impulse add. If you just need to out-rank a few rivals on Google, the standard Organic Research tool already covers you, and you can skip this entirely. Add-on pricing moves, so confirm the current figure on the live pricing page before committing.
Worth knowing for context: Adobe completed its acquisition of Semrush in April 2026, and the plan line-up was reorganised into the classic SEO toolkit plus a newer Semrush One bundle line. Traffic & Market remains a separate paid add-on either way — it isn’t included in any base tier. I break the plan structure down in Semrush Pro vs Guru.
Pros
- Full traffic picture by channel — not just organic search
- Market Explorer sizes a whole niche before you invest in it
- Audience data (One2Target) and competitor monitoring (EyeOn) in one place
- Turns SEO tooling into genuine business and market strategy
Cons
- A paid add-on (~$289/user/mo) on top of your base plan — often pricier than the plan itself
- Traffic figures are estimates; use them for relative comparison, not exact numbers
- Overkill if you only need to win keyword battles on Google
For the keyword side of competitive research, pair this with Organic Research; to pick the right base plan, see Semrush Pro vs Guru; and if you’re new to the platform, start with how to use Semrush.
See Semrush plans and pricingFrequently asked questions
What is Semrush competitive intelligence?
It's a suite of tools — Traffic Analytics, Market Explorer, One2Target and EyeOn, sold as the Traffic & Market Toolkit add-on (formerly branded .Trends) — that estimates a competitor's total traffic by channel, sizes markets, profiles audiences and monitors competitor activity. It goes beyond keywords to the whole traffic and market picture.
What is Traffic Analytics in Semrush?
Traffic Analytics estimates any domain's total visits and breaks them down by channel — direct, referral, organic search, social and paid — so you can see where a competitor really gets its traffic, not just how it does on Google.
Is the Traffic & Market Toolkit (.Trends) add-on worth it?
At around $289 per user per month it is worth it only if competitive or market research is a real part of your work — agencies, consultants and anyone planning to enter a new market. It often costs more than the base plan it sits on, so it is not an impulse purchase. If you only need to out-rank rivals on organic search, the standard Organic Research tool is enough.
What happened to Semrush .Trends?
It was renamed. The competitive intelligence suite formerly branded ".Trends" is now the Traffic & Market Toolkit — the same tools (Traffic Analytics, Market Explorer, One2Target and EyeOn) sold as a paid add-on on top of your base plan. Older articles still use the .Trends name.
How accurate is competitor traffic data?
It is modelled from Semrush's data sources, so treat it as directional. The channel mix and relative comparisons between competitors are reliable enough to plan strategy around, even if the absolute visit counts are estimates.