Marketing competitive analysis: map competitors and find strategic gaps

Looking for hands-on marketing support to accalerate your busines growth?

Let FUSE be your fractional marketing partner

Why marketing competitive analysis should guide choices, not copycats

Too many teams monitor competitors like a scoreboard and end up imitating tactics. Useful competitive analysis is different. It clarifies where you can win, what to ignore, and how to allocate budget with confidence. This guide gives you a simple process to map competitors, spot strategic gaps, and translate findings into a plan you can execute.

Pair this with your one-page marketing strategy and your quarterly marketing roadmap so insight becomes funded work.

Define competitors the way buyers do

Direct. Companies solving the same job for the same audience.
Indirect. Alternative ways to solve the job, including doing nothing.
Adjacent. Firms one click away in search or content that influence consideration.

Base your list on the queries your audience searches and the pages they visit. For behaviour inputs, review Think with Google insights and market usage trends from Ofcom’s Online Nation.

Collect only the signals that matter

Positioning and promise. The headline on home, category, and comparison pages.
Pricing posture. Range, packaging, and any free or freemium levers.
Proof. Case studies, data points, and logos by segment.
Channel emphasis. Paid search themes, social creative patterns, PR cadence, and partnerships.
Funnel cues. Calls to action, forms, demos, trials, and follow up sequences.

Keep notes in a simple table with links and screenshots. Record dates so you can spot changes over time.

Score the landscape with a lightweight grid

Choose five factors that matter for your audience, for example trust proof, ease of start, total cost, speed to value, and feature depth.

Score each competitor conservatively from 1 to 5 based on observable evidence, not guesses.

Add your current position. This shows honest strengths and gaps to close.

Mark any factors where the market is under serving the audience. These are potential strategic gaps.

Find strategic gaps you can credibly own

Look for value that competitors neglect or complicate. Examples include faster time to value, clearer proof for a niche, or a simpler buying journey. Turn one or two of these into a focused promise and proof set in your positioning.

For the full positioning method, see marketing positioning: write and test a statement and build messaging with marketing messaging: value proposition and proof library.

Translate insight into channels and budget

If competitors over invest in bottom funnel, claim the under used awareness territory with creator, PR, or video tied to proof.
If they dominate paid search terms, build high intent content and comparison pages to capture organic demand.
If their onboarding is complex, invest in website UX, trials, and lifecycle programmes.

Allocate spend by objective first, then channels. Use the approach in marketing budget: split spend by objective and shortlist channels with marketing channels: choose the right mix for your stage.

Run a quick win test plan

Write three hypotheses based on gaps, for example a clearer promise for a niche, a faster start flow, or a proof led ad set.

Pick one to two channels with enough volume to test each hypothesis.

Define success metrics, run time, and decision rules before you start.

Scale winners and document results in your messaging and briefs.

Governance and cadence to keep learning

Review your grid quarterly, not daily. Store screenshots and notes so you can see real shifts, not noise. Keep one owner and share a one page summary with sales and product so everyone benefits.

Use your operating rhythm to make decisions. See build a simple marketing operating rhythm and manage approvals with marketing governance for small teams.

Common pitfalls to avoid

Copying tactics without understanding the strategy.
Tracking every move. Review quarterly and focus on signals that matter.
Ignoring the default of doing nothing as a competitor.
Forgetting to test with your audience before rolling out changes.

Final checklist

Competitor list defined by how buyers decide.
Evidence table captured with dates and links.
Five factor scoring grid completed including your brand.
Two strategic gaps chosen with proof ideas.
Channel and budget shifts mapped to the plan.
Test plan written with decision rules and owners.