Where do i begin?

[jgmayes]

I have just set up a campaign - what is the best way to dig into this and start making a difference in my SEO?

[Highland]

Start with Open Site Explorer (doesn't require any time for spidering, etc). Compare your sites to your competitors. Start building links as best as you can.

Once your campaign is done with the initial crawl, analyze your competitors. What are they doing right and where are they weak?

[jgmayes]

is it poor etiquette to request links from those sites that are linking to the competitor? what is the best way of going about getting links?

[gfiorelli1]

Apart what said by Highland, start checking the crawling information. The campaign will show at first just 250 pages crawl, in order to give you a first glimpse of the on site issues your site may have. After few day you will have all the pages of your site crawled.

Use the keyword tracker and connect your Google Analytics account to the campaign. After few days the crossed data will start showing you potential low hanging fruits.

Said that, I suggest you to attend the free webinar SEOmoz weekly does for all those ones starting using the campaign tools as you: http://www.seomoz.org/webinars

[gfiorelli1]

Mmm... not really.

For instance, if a blog site is linking to a competitor site, study why and how it did it. Maybe it is citing the competitor site in a more generic post related to the industry you and your competitor are part of. Or maybe it is reviewing one of its services/products.

In both cases you are legitimate to contact that blog and try to earn a link from it.