Competitor analysis for marketing: what to look at and what to ignore

The short answer: a marketing competitor analysis compares what others in your market offer, say, show and prove, so you can decide where to be similar and where to be different. It is useful only if it ends in decisions. A table of observations that changes nothing is a waste of a week.

The aim is not to copy competitors. It is to understand what customers are comparing you against.

Choose the right competitors

• Direct competitors: who sells the same thing to the same people.
• Indirect competitors: a different solution to the same problem.
• The alternative of doing nothing or doing it in house.

Pick five to eight. Ask customers who else they considered. Their list is more reliable than yours.

What to study

1. The offer: what is included, how it is packaged, what is not said.
2. The message: the main promise and the words they use.
3. The audience: who the content seems to speak to.
4. The channels: where they are active and where they are not.
5. The proof: case studies, reviews, named clients, results.
6. The website: structure, speed, clarity of the next step.
7. The advertising: public ad libraries show what they are currently running.

Use what is public

Public ad libraries on the major platforms show active ads. Search results show what they rank for. Their own pages and social profiles show what they say. You do not need expensive tools to learn a lot.

Put it in a simple table

One row per competitor, one column per point above, and a final column called "what this means for us". If that last column is empty, you have not finished.

Look for gaps

• Something customers ask for that nobody answers.
• A channel nobody uses well.
• A promise everyone makes and nobody proves.
• A group of customers that nobody speaks to directly.

Turn it into decisions

Write three things: what we will do the same as the market because customers expect it, what we will do differently and what we will not do. Then check them against your positioning.

Common mistakes

• Studying only the largest competitor.
• Copying their style without their reasons.
• Confusing activity with success. A competitor that posts a lot is not necessarily winning.
• Doing it once. Review it each quarter.

An illustration: reading a competitor's page

Imagine you open a competitor's website and note down: the main promise in the first line, who the page seems to speak to, three pieces of proof they show, what the button says and what is missing. You might find that they mention speed but not quality, show no named clients and hide the minimum order. Each of those is a gap you can use.

Do the same for five competitors and a pattern appears, which is more useful than any single observation.

Look at their advertising

The public ad libraries on the major platforms show which ads are running now and how long they have run. An ad that has run for months is probably working. Compare it with your own messages. If you want help turning the findings into campaigns, our paid media team starts from this kind of research.

What to do this week

1. Ask five recent customers who else they considered.
2. Pick the five or six names that come up most, plus the alternative of doing nothing.
3. Spend twenty minutes on each: the website, the social profiles and the ad library.
4. Fill one row per competitor in a table, including a "what this means for us" column.
5. Write the three decisions at the bottom and share them with the team.

Ask customers about competitors

Your own customers and prospects are the best source on competitors. Ask them who else they considered, what they liked about the others and why they chose you or hesitated. Ask people who did not buy, too, if they are willing to talk. Their answers show how the market really sees the options, which is often different from how the business sees it.

Record the answers in a short table: the competitor named, what the customer valued, what put them off. After ten or fifteen conversations, patterns emerge. They tell you where you are seen as strong, where you are seen as weak and what the customer assumes before they ever speak to you.

Doing it fairly

Study what competitors publish: their websites, their public ads, their social accounts and their reviews. Do not pretend to be a customer to obtain private information, do not copy their work and do not make claims about them that you cannot support. Fair competition respects the audience and the rules.

Use what you learn to improve your own offer and message, not to imitate. If every competitor says the same thing, the opportunity is usually to say something truer and clearer, not to say it louder.

A quarterly routine

1. Update the competitor table with new products, messages and pages.
2. Check their public advertising for new angles or offers.
3. Read recent reviews of two or three competitors for repeated praise or complaints.
4. Compare against your own position and note two actions.
5. Share a one-page summary with the team.

Keeping it short and regular is better than a large report that is done once and forgotten.

An illustration: a one-page competitor summary

A useful summary fits on one page. At the top, three lines: who the main competitors are for this audience, what they all say and where there is room to say something different. Below, a small table with one row per competitor and columns for the offer, the main promise, the proof they show, the channels they use and one thing they do well. At the bottom, a short list of actions for your own business, such as a clearer promise, a stronger proof section or a channel they ignore.

Keep the language factual. Avoid opinions about their quality that you cannot support. The page is a working tool for decisions, so each line should lead to something you can do. If a line does not, remove it.

How we do it

We do this at the start of every engagement and update it as the market moves. If you want a clear picture of where you stand, talk to us.