How To Do a Competitive Analysis In 5-and-a-half Easy Steps

Originally written by John Becker. Updated by Bob Ruffolo with support from the IMPACT editorial team.
Last updated: November 2, 2026

Whatever you sell, other companies offer something similar, and your buyers are comparing you with them. A competitive analysis shows you how you stack up in that comparison: what competitors say, what they publish, how buyers respond to them, and where they leave questions unanswered.

You don't need expensive research to start. Much of what you need is public, and you can gather a good share of it from your own desk in an afternoon. Repeat the review a few times a year, because your competitors and the ways buyers research them keep changing.

Why is it important to research competitors?

Most markets are getting more crowded, and buyers do much of their comparison before they ever talk to you. Crayon's 2025 State of Competitive Intelligence report found that 55% of companies saw more competitive deals than they did a year earlier. Among those companies, an average of 68% of sales opportunities were competitive.

The same survey asked where the most useful competitive intelligence comes from. Respondents ranked intel from their own buyers, sellers, and deals first, ahead of competitor websites. Keep the source in mind: Crayon sells competitive intelligence software, and the survey covered more than 400 competitive intelligence professionals at B2B software companies between December 2024 and February 2025. Treat the numbers as a signal, not a benchmark for your industry. The practical lesson applies broadly, though. Your sales team hears about competitors every week, so ask them first.

Beyond what your own team knows, competitive research means collecting information that's already public: company websites, press releases, news coverage, business databases such as D&B Hoovers, and, for public companies, filings in the SEC's EDGAR database. Search engines and AI assistants can help you find much of it quickly. Here's how to put it together.

How to conduct your competitive analysis

1. Identify your top ten competitors

This seems obvious, but it's an essential first step. Do you know who your top competitors are?

If you sell a product or service online, you are likely competing with dozens, even hundreds of companies going after the same group of qualified leads.

Whether you are a local, national, or international company, someone on your sales or marketing team can probably name your top competitors quickly and explain what differentiates them from you. Start there.

If you need a little help, search for the type of product or service you offer. A few of your top competitors will very likely show up.

SEO tools such as Semrush can also show you which other companies rank for your keywords and how you compare with them. Depending on your business, reviews on Google, Yelp, Angi, or Trustpilot can show you which companies buyers are considering.

2. Analyze and compare competitor marketing

Once you've identified your competitors, dig a little deeper to understand what type of content they're publishing.

Analyzing their content can show you where your own messaging has gaps. What types of content do your competitors focus on? Blogs? Case studies? Premium content? Are there newsletters, YouTube channels, or podcasts?

Once you've located their content, judge its quality and how it compares to yours. Look at how often they publish and update content, and which topics they cover.

At the bottom line, are they doing anything that you aren't?

If your competitors consistently publish case studies, that could be part of the reason quality leads are going to them. A prospective client wants to know what it's like to work with your company.

Next, take a closer look at their website.

If your competitors publish articles three times a week and you publish one every two weeks, it's worth building a larger library of content that answers your buyers' questions. A clear content marketing strategy will help you decide what to publish and how to organize it so buyers can find it.

However, don't publish just to add more content. It won't generate more traffic if the content you're adding isn't remarkable.

2 (A). Analyze their traffic

Say your competitors have the same type of content, update it just as frequently, and produce high-quality work. You might have to look more closely to find what they are doing differently.

It might be their SEO.

If your company has a blog, you know how important your SEO is. While conducting a competitive analysis on the type of content your competitors are generating, it is also beneficial to consider that content's SEO.

Look for gaps that you can go after. Be willing to talk about things that your competitors aren't.

If there are taboo topics in your industry, consider being the one to address them. For example, in some fields it's uncommon for companies to openly address price and cost. Cost is one of The Big 5, the five topics buyers research most before they buy: cost, problems, comparisons, reviews, and best in class. If you're willing to address it, you can become the established voice of trust in your field.

As you look at keyword rankings, look for opportunities.

If a top result for tennis rackets is a few years old, try to outrank it with one that's more up to date.

Does their list of top insurance providers leave out a big one? Does it fail to include a featured snippet? Are any links broken?

Search results aren't the only place buyers compare options anymore. Ask a few AI assistants, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity, the questions your buyers ask, like who the best providers in your category are or how two options compare. Note which competitors come up, what the answers say about you, and which pages they cite. Those answers change often, so treat them as a snapshot rather than a ranking.

When you look closely at the work of your competitors, you should be able to identify gaps and shortcomings. Use the creativity and expertise of your team to fill in those gaps.

3. Evaluate their social media engagement

Every company uses social media differently. For some it's a way to talk with customers and fans, and for others it's mainly a way to distribute content and get discovered.

The next step of your competitive analysis is to determine how your competitors use social media and how it fits into their marketing. Don't stop at whether they have profiles. Look at how effectively they use them.

What type of information are they posting? How often?

Next, check out engagement.

• Do their posts get clicks?
• Do they have followers?
• Are their posts often liked, shared, or reposted?
• Are they posting photos that showcase events or company culture?
• Do they engage with their audience?
• Are they leading conversations that potential customers care about?

These are all questions you should be asking yourself when you are checking your competitors' profiles. Remember, just because they have a profile does not necessarily mean they are winning with social.

Don't just click off the page quickly. Learn what they are doing, and look for what you could do better.

4. Dig into their company's health

This one's a bit harder, but that just means you'll have to do some digging. Find the information you can so you're able to piece together the full picture.

Businesses are not keen on broadcasting their financial health to the entire marketplace. But there are signals you can look for.

• Stability. Is there high turnover at a competitor? Look for frequent job postings or positions that never seem to get filled. Follow the company on LinkedIn and notice when there's a departure on the leadership team.
• Financial health. You can look for clues about financial health in a bunch of places. Layoffs tend to make their way onto social media. So do acquisitions, mergers, downgrades in office space, and other indicators of change.
• Customer satisfaction. You can pore over social media and review sites (Google Business Profile, Yelp, Angi, and others) to see what customers are saying about the business. Companies sometimes remove bad comments, but you're likely to get a sense of it.

None of these will give you a full picture of a company's health, but they give you an idea.

5. Identify areas for improvement

After performing a competitive analysis, you have a much clearer picture of what your competitors are doing.

Take all the information you gathered about each competitor and identify particular areas of your own work that can be improved. If you're looking closely enough, you're bound to find something.

You'll be able to identify key areas to improve, especially in how you communicate with potential customers, blog readers and subscribers, and social media followers.

Get started

The information your competitors already publish on their websites, social profiles, and content, combined with review sites and what your sales team hears in conversations, gives you most of what you need to position your company.

Start with the research that's already close at hand. Then plan with your colleagues where you'll do better than the competition, whether that's answering questions they avoid, publishing more useful content, or responding to customers more quickly. That's how your firm becomes the one buyers see as a first choice, whatever field you occupy.