For the first time since the race began, front runner Donald Trump is starting to show signs that his formidable lead might be starting to crack.

Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are both sensing blood in the water and they have been unleashing their harshest attacks on Trump.

As the republican race for president heats up, it’s worth taking a look at how the candidates are positioning themselves.

With the help of Campaign Watch, I was able to quickly pull together these screenshots and competitive intelligence from each candidates website.

Marco Rubio

The team is currently redirecting visitors from their home page to funnel them into this email sign up. The call to action to “Stop Trump” is prominent, appearing both in the image at the top of the form as well as in the lead headline.

The Rubio team uses as strong call to action on the submit button, “I’m in”

Continuing on to his site, again a visitor is presented with a prominent email sign up. It’s interesting that rather than lead with campaign promises, he asks a simple question. “Do you want to win?”

Not as prominent as the redirect page, his call to stop Donald Trump occupies 2 out of the 3 sub content boxes.

How does he pitch people once they hit the donate page?

Gone are the mentions of trump. The question asked at the top of the form, ‘Are you ready for a new American century?’ seems broad and not as compelling as his previous content at the top of the funnel.

What is persuasive though, is the language in the sub headline, “If so, chip in a few bucks now.”

By framing the call to action in these few words, he’s reduced the friction point for a person to pull out their credit card. It’s much more subtle than saying “donate” or “give”. “Chip in” also gives the visitor the impression that many in their peer network have already contributed.

Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz’s home page is redirecting visitors to this donation page. By doing so, he’s direct and to the point – he wants donations from his visitors.

Compared to the call to action on Marco Rubio’s donation page, Ted Cruz’s “conservatives are uniting, this is our time” is seems a bit broad.

Ted Cruz is casting a wide net with this call to action. The goal of getting a visitor to the next step of the donation funnel is almost certainly converting at a lower percentage than that of the Rubio page.

Take a close look at the donation page. The option to make the donation recurring on a weekly basis is checked by default.

I wonder how his supporters feel about this when they fill out the form. It has the possibility of bringing in even more donations. However it could also hurt more than it helps by alienating people going through a crucial step in the funnel.

Moving on to the Ted Cruz home page you can see that like the Rubio home page there is very little in the way of text in the above the fold section. Also, he too makes enticing a visitor to sign up for his email list the primary goal of the page.

The big difference here though is while Marco Rubio refers to Donald Trump twice on his home page, Ted Cruz doesn’t mention him at all.

Which approach do you think is more effective at attracting donations?

Donald Trump

He is getting so much press and has an established brand that his website obviously gets the most traffic.

Unlike the previous two candidates, Donald Trump is not redirecting visitors to an email sign up list or a donation page. His message “make America great again” is repeated twice above the fold.

Donald Trump is known for communicating directly to people via twitter and almost entirely passing on traditional media interviews. “Make America great again is aimed squarely at his audience who feels the system, both politics and traditional media are completely broken.

Does this donation from look familiar? It should. It’s the same one used by Marco Rubio. Here though, the option to make a visitor’s donation recurring is not checked by default. Also here the option is for MONTHLY while Ted Cruz’s is for WEEKLY.

This race is getting more exciting with each passing day please share your thoughts below. In our next posts, we’re going to dive into metrics such as ad spend comparisons, traffic volume, PPC ads and landing pages. Stop back or subscribe for updates.