What is competitive analysis? (And how to conduct one)

You see it in movies: football teams watching playbacks of games to understand what plays their competitors made. Or you see it on TV: Olympic gymnasts studying the competition’s every move, every mistake. Their goal isn’t necessarily to learn from the competition or copy what they do—though they can. Instead, they’re looking to understand where they might have an edge and use that strength as a competitive advantage.

It’s the same in business. Understanding your competitors and the decisions they make is a crucial step in capturing market share. A thorough competitive analysis reveals what customers value, how you can stand apart, and allocate your resources effectively. Whether you're launching a new product, entering a new market, or refreshing your strategy, competitive analysis provides the market intelligence you need to compete with confidence.

What is competitive analysis?

Competitive analysis is the systematic process of identifying, researching, and evaluating your competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, strategies, and market position. You’ll want to understand how other companies serve your target audience and how to differentiate your offering.

This analysis goes beyond simply listing long-standing and new competitors. It involves in-depth research into their products, pricing strategy, marketing tactics, customer experience, and business strategies to inform your own decision-making.

Why do a competitor analysis?

Competitive analysis is vital for any startup entering a new market. But it’s also important for companies to do this analysis at key intervals—well ahead of launches or big changes in pricing or business strategy—so that you understand how changes will impact your customer base and position you against the competition (who are also busy making changes).

A competitor analysis provides the following benefits:

Identify market gaps and opportunities

Competitive analysis reveals underserved customer needs and market segments your competitors overlook. By mapping what exists in the market, you can spot white space opportunities where your product or service can meet demand.

Understand your differentiation

Knowing what competitors offer helps you explain what makes your solution unique. Clear differentiation strengthens your positioning, sharpens your messaging, and gives your sales team compelling reasons why prospects should choose you.

Set realistic benchmarks

Competitor performance data provides context for your own metrics. Understanding industry standards for pricing, features, customer acquisition costs, and conversion rates helps you set achievable goals and identify areas where you're outperforming or falling behind.

Anticipate market shifts

Monitoring competitor activity helps you spot emerging trends before they become mainstream. When multiple competitors invest in similar capabilities or target new segments, it signals where the market is heading.

Make informed strategic decisions

Competitive intelligence reduces guesswork in product development, pricing, and go-to-market strategy. Understanding the competitive landscape helps you allocate resources to initiatives that provide the strongest advantage.

What is competitive market research?

Competitive market research is the systematic collection and analysis of information about your competitors and the broader market environment. While competitive analysis focuses specifically on direct competitors, market research encompasses industry trends, customer demographics and behaviors, regulatory changes, and economic factors that affect your overall competitive position.

This research combines primary sources (customer interviews and competitor interactions) with secondary sources (industry reports, financial filings, analyst reviews) to build a comprehensive view of the market landscape.

What to include in competitive analysis research

Your competitive research should cover several key areas. Start with product features and capabilities, including pricing models and positioning. Document your competition’s marketing efforts: marketing channels, messaging, content strategy, and sales tactics.

Analyze their customer experience from first touch through onboarding and support. Review their market presence through website traffic, social media engagement, search rankings, and brand awareness. When available, examine financial performance, funding, growth trajectory, and organizational structure.

How to do a competitive analysis

Here’s a step-by-step approach to analysis.

1. Identify your competitors

Start by categorizing competitors—and cast a wide net. There are three types of competitors to consider:

To think beyond the obvious players, talk to your sales team about who’s mentioned in deals, and search online for keywords related to your product to discover who’s coming up in search engine results. You might be surprised!

2. Gather competitive intelligence

Collect information across multiple sources (and consider using AI to help):

3. Analyze (and document) their positioning and messaging

Study how competitors talk about themselves and the problems they solve. Document their value propositions, key messages, and target audiences. Note which features they emphasize and which customer pain points they address.

Compare their positioning to yours. Where do you overlap? Where do you diverge? Understanding their narrative helps you to craft unique selling propositions.

4. Evaluate their strengths and weaknesses

Assess each competitor objectively across different criteria. These might include: product capabilities, user experience, market presence, customer satisfaction, pricing, and brand strength. Identify what they do better than you and where you outperform them.

Pay particular attention to weaknesses that represent opportunities for you. Frequent customer complaints, missing features, or poor reviews in specific areas signal where you might win business.

5. Identify your areas of opportunity

Synthesize your research into actionable insights. Create a competitive matrix comparing key features and positioning. Identify patterns across competitors that suggest industry norms or emerging trends. Most importantly, apply these findings to strategic planning for product development and your go-to-market strategy. Where can you stand out? Which competitor weaknesses can you exploit? Where do you need to make a defensive move or catch up?

Competitive analysis examples

There are a few different types of analysis to consider:

Competitive product analysis

Synthesize your research into actionable insights. Create a competitive matrix comparing key features and positioning. Identify patterns across competitors that suggest industry norms or emerging trends. Most importantly, apply these findings to strategic planning for product development and your go-to-market strategy. Where can you stand out? Which competitor weaknesses can you exploit? Where do you need to make a defensive move or catch up

Keyword competition analysis​

Keyword analysis identifies which search terms competitors rank for and their content strategy. Tools like SEMrush reveal competitor keyword rankings, search volume, and content gaps. This analysis informs your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy and content roadmap by showing where competitors have authority and where opportunities exist.

Competitive analysis of websites

Website analysis examines design, user experience, conversion optimization, and technical performance. Evaluate navigation, messaging hierarchy, calls to action, page load speed, and mobile responsiveness. Tools like SimilarWeb can provide traffic estimates and referral sources.

Competitive price analysis

Price analysis maps how competitors structure pricing, including tiers, packaging, and discount strategies. Document list prices along with total cost of ownership, contract terms, and how pricing aligns with positioning. Understanding pricing helps you position your own pricing competitively.

Social media competitive analysis

Website analysis examines design, user experience, conversion optimization, and technical performance. Evaluate navigation, messaging hierarchy, calls to action, page load speed, and mobile responsiveness. Tools like SimilarWeb can provide traffic estimates and referral sources.

Digital marketing competitive analysis

Competitive analysis in digital marketing includes research across a competitor’s website—examining design, user experience, conversion optimization, and technical performance. Evaluate navigation, messaging hierarchy, calls to action, page load speed, and mobile responsiveness. Tools like SimilarWeb can provide traffic estimates and referral sources.

UX competitive analysis​

UX analysis evaluates the end-to-end user experience, from initial discovery through onboarding and ongoing use. Document friction points, delightful moments, and accessibility. Testing competitor products and user flows yourself provides insights that no secondary research can match.

Competitive analysis tools​

Several categories of tools support competitive research. These may include:

Competitive analysis framework

It’s not necessary, but it’s often useful to use a structured framework to help ensure comprehensive analysis. The most common approach examines competitors across key dimensions: product, pricing, market presence, positioning, and performance. Within each dimension, identify specific metrics and evaluation criteria relevant to your industry.

Another effective framework is to perform SWOT analysis for each major competitor, documenting their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This highlights where competitors are vulnerable and where they might expand.

How to build a competitive analysis report

A competitive analysis report includes several components:

1. Start with an executive summary highlighting key findings and strategic implications.

2. Provide an overview of the competitive landscape, including market segmentation and perhaps a visual map that shows where you’re positioned.

3. Include detailed competitor profiles covering their products, positioning, go-to-market strategy, and performance, allowing stakeholders to take a deep dive into the research if they want.

4. Add comparative analysis through feature matrices, pricing comparisons, and SWOT analysis summaries.

5. Conclude with strategic recommendations based on your findings.

The goal is to keep reports visual and scannable, using charts, graphs, and tables to present comparative data.

Use our competitive analysis template

Don’t make the mistake of launching a new product or feature blind. Researching the competition may sound like a lot of work, but Airtable makes it easy with this pre-built competitive analysis template. It provides a structured system for tracking competitors, organizing research, and sharing insights across your team. Whether you’re a small business or a large enterprise, this template offers a quick and easy way to get started. It includes pre-built views for comparing features, tracking pricing changes, monitoring content, and analyzing positioning.

You can customize fields to match your industry and analysis needs, attach supporting documents and screenshots, and collaborate with colleagues in real time.