How to Build a Competitive Intelligence Strategy from Scratch

Competitive intelligence (CI) gives you the clarity to make the right moves for your business—whether that’s meeting customer needs, finding new opportunities, or outsmarting competitors.

Marketing agency Thrive proves this perfectly.

I spoke to Aaron Whittaker, the VP of Demand Gen and Marketing at Thrive, to understand how they use CI.

His team gathered intel to solve a specific challenge. Prospects were choosing AI marketing solutions over traditional agencies.

The team used these insights to create battlecards, increasing the win rate by 35%.

In this article, I’ll explain the key components of a competitive intelligence framework.

I’ll also break down four phases for conducting competitive intelligence research.

What Is Competitive Intelligence?

Competitive intelligence is the process of turning raw competitor data into actionable insights.

This helps your business make strategic decisions and stay ahead in the market.

A competitive intelligence report helps you answer three critical questions:

1. Where are your competitors heading?
2. Why and how are they making these moves?
3. How can you respond effectively to stay ahead?

CI research works on two levels: tactical and strategic.

Tactical intel focuses on improving your short-term strategy.

This includes decisions related to new launches, marketing campaigns, and more.

Strategic intel shapes your overall business strategy.

It helps you understand your market better, so you can make smart choices about where to focus and how to stand out.

Competitive Intelligence vs. Market Research

Competitive intelligence and market research are both important methods of gathering data to make smarter business decisions. But they work in different ways and have unique goals.

CI research tracks your competitors to find growth opportunities and predict market shifts.

The goal?

To strategically gain an advantage and stay ahead in a rapidly changing market.

On the other hand, market research studies:

• Consumer behavior
• Market conditions
• Demand patterns
• Growth trends

It analyzes the current market to discover gaps you can fulfill.

These insights support tactical decisions in product development, marketing, and other goals.

Here’s how competitive intelligence differs from market research:

3 Key Components of a Competitive Intelligence Framework

A strong competitive intelligence framework boils down to three essentials: find the right data, analyze it effectively, and put it into action.

Let’s discuss each component in detail.

Data

Collecting relevant, targeted data is the first step in CI research.

Start with secondary sources to get a broader view of the competitive landscape.

Check out competitor websites, help portals, and industry reports.

I chatted with Stanislav Khilobochenko, the VP of Customer Services at Clario, about CI data sources.

He explains how he uses platforms like G2 and Trustpilot to capture the voice of the customer:

Analysis

Look closely at your data to extract meaningful insights and find growth opportunities. This can help you confidently choose the right next steps for your business.

The real value is in analyzing multiple data sources in parallel. Think web research, customer feedback, and sales conversations.

Each source provides a different perspective, and combining them creates a fuller picture.

Here’s how the process might look if you own a project management platform:

• Goal: Help sales reps close more deals
• Analytical insight: Customer reviews reveal a need for niche integrations, while sales conversations highlight lost deals due to limited integrations
• Business decision: Plan your product roadmap to build more integrations

So, your sellers can use this information to attract more customers. Information they wouldn’t be able to use without analyzing the right data.

Activation

Once you complete your analysis, share your findings with relevant stakeholders.

You can choose different formats, such as battle cards, competitor profiles, and meetings. More on that later.

The activation phase is all about using competitive intel to plan ahead.

I wanted to understand this phase better, so I spoke to Federico Jorge, the founder of Stack Against. He creates search-optimized comparison pages for SaaS companies based on in-depth competitive intel.

In one of his projects, he helped a client gather intel on a small competitor that was acquired by a large company.

Overnight, this competitor went from being an ankle biter to a huge threat that started to go after his client’s share of the market.

How to Collect Competitive Intelligence in 4 Phases

Fast-moving markets. Evolving customer preferences. Unexpected competitor moves.

You need competitive intel to survive and thrive in the face of these challenges.

Let’s cover a 4-phase framework for conducting competitive intelligence research based on experts’ advice.

Phase 1: Goal Setting and Preparation

In the first phase, you have to prepare the groundwork for your competitive intelligence research.

This involves outlining why you need this intel and who you’re competing against.

Define Why You Need Competitive Intelligence

Without a defined purpose and scope, competitive intelligence data is just noise.

Setting a clear “why” saves you from wasting time on irrelevant information.

The result?

You get insights directly aligned with your business goals to guide your decisions.

So, start by outlining your core problem or growth opportunity.

Do you want to:

• Enter a new market?
• Find key differentiators?
• Improve your brand positioning?
• Make product enhancements?

Along with your goals, think of specific questions you want to answer with this data. Also define the key stakeholders who will use this intel.

For example, let’s say you want to finalize a new pricing structure for your software product.

Poor goal-setting:

“We need to know how our competitors are pricing their products.”

Good goal-setting:

• Goal: Build a well-informed pricing strategy
• Questions: How have our top three competitors priced their enterprise plans? What changes have they made to their plans in terms of price point and capabilities?
• Stakeholders: Product and sales leadership

Map Your Competitive Landscape

With your goals in place, you now need to identify:

• Direct competitors: Businesses offering the same products or services as you
• Indirect competitors: Businesses offering products or services that act as a substitute for yours

Start with a simple Google search to find your direct competitors.

Let’s say you run a local bakery.

Search for keywords like “custom cakes near me,” “wedding cake shops,” or “best bakeries in [your city].”

You’ll find direct competitors ranking well in organic search, like the ones visible here:

Then, go a step further with a tool like Semrush’s Organic Research to find more competitors.

Add your domain (or a competitor’s website) and hit “Search.”

In the “Competitors” tab, you’ll find the Competitive Positioning Map.

It highlights your biggest competitors based on traffic volume and number of keywords.

Scroll down to see a more extensive list of organic competitors.

You can analyze competitors with metrics like competition level, shared keywords, and organic traffic.

Use this exercise to prepare and maintain an active list of your primary competitors.

Expand this database with indirect competitors and create these tiers:

• Primary: Direct head-to-head competitors
• Secondary: Occasional overlap in market/customers
• Tertiary: Indirect competitors with substitute solutions

Phase 2: Collect Data Systematically in Stages

Once you have locked in your list of competitors, it’s time to collect data.

Here are some of the most popular data sources you can use:

But random data won’t cut it.

I chatted with experts, and they recommend collecting data systematically in four stages.

Stage 1: Analyze Online Presence

Start with the easiest layer—your competitors’ online presence.

You can use tools to see exactly what’s working for your competitors online, from their top pages to their content strategy.

Edward White, Beehiiv’s Head of Growth, shared how he used Semrush to perform an SEO competitive analysis:

24 months later, Beehiiv’s website went from ~0 to 1 million clicks/year.

To get started with your own similar analysis, go to Semrush’s Domain Overview and add one of your competitors’ websites.

(I’ll use the furniture rental site Fernish as an example.)

The Domain Overview report shows this site has an authority score of 31 and nearly 12K backlinks.

The tool also reveals Fernish’s organic and paid traffic over the past two years.

It also shows me that the majority of Fernish’s traffic comes from the U.S., followed by Indonesia and Canada.

Lots of useful data, but we want to go deeper.

The “Compare domains” tab provides a deeper analysis of Fernish’s top four competitors.

I compared three competitors on their authority score, traffic, and backlinks.

The report also showed the traffic share among the four brands, with Fernish getting 13% of the total traffic.

Once you’ve identified your top competitors in organic search, go to the Organic Research tool to find more information about each competitor.

I focused on this report for Inhabitr, one of Fernish’s top competitors.

This report tells me the keywords where Inhabitr is ranking well and attracting organic traffic.

It also categorizes these keywords by search intent to help me understand Inhabitr’s SEO strategy.

I can see the top pages driving the most traffic to this site.

This report also shows the type of keywords each page targets and how much traffic it gets.

Looking at the SERP Features Trend report, I realized that Inhabitr’s content strategy focused mostly on local SEO.

However, the brand now also seems to be leveraging image SEO to improve its organic search performance.

These kinds of competitive insights can help you adapt your own strategies based on what’s working well for your rivals.

Stage 2: Understand Market Context

Learn how the market perceives your competitors with:

• Social listening tools: to monitor brand mentions and perform a social media competitor analysis
• Analyst reports: to understand how competitors fit into the broader competitive landscape
• Review platforms: to collect customer feedback and discover their challenges and unmet needs

For public companies, annual reports provide valuable insights into operations and financials.

Aaron Whittaker of Thrive Internet Marketing Agency shared an interesting insight to expand your research scope.

He explained how his team went beyond visible metrics (like pricing and features) to gain an edge over competitors.

Stage 3: Conduct Field Research

Use hands-on research to find insights that aren’t available through external analysis.

Sign up for trials, purchase products, and document the entire marketing funnel.

Pay attention to your competitors’ sales process, customer support, and overall user experience.

This is where you’ll find opportunities for differentiation.

Stage 4: Gather Network Intelligence

Collect data through a network of buyers, employees, and vendors.

Check your win/loss reports or sales calls. They’ll show you the competitors you’re losing to.

Interview these buyers to find out why they chose a competitor over you.

Sam Niro, Senior Manager of Competitive Intelligence at Talkdesk, shares her best practice:

Consider historical context throughout your data collection process.

If you’re a two-year-old company competing with a five-year-old brand, check their metrics from three years ago.

This provides more relevant benchmarks for your growth trajectory than their current performance might suggest.

Phase 3: Analyze Data and Extract Meaningful Insights

Now, you’re ready to dig into the data and connect the dots to find actionable insights about your competitors.

Data Organization

Raw data alone doesn’t drive decisions—analysis does.

You have to clean, organize, and validate data before extracting actionable insights.

I asked Federico Jorge, the founder of Stack Against, to share his best advice for this phase of CI research.

He emphasized the importance of keeping the bigger picture in mind during analysis:

Data Analysis

Let’s break down three methods to analyze data:

Trends Analysis

Analyze your competitors’ actions over time to find patterns in their behavior. Like product launches, pricing changes, positioning changes, and more.

As trends emerge, you can predict your competitors’ next moves and adapt your strategy.

It also allows you to spot gaps and undiscovered opportunities in the market.

Picture this:

You run a meal-delivery business.

Trend analysis tells you:

• Two competitors added plant-based options in the last quarter
• Five of them started a weekend-only delivery service
• Many highlight “locally sourced” in their content

These patterns indicate customers prefer plant-based options and care about food sourcing. There’s also a demand for weekend-only plans.

You can use this information to add to or improve your own services. And reduce the risks of being left behind in the market.

Strategic Group Analysis

Use strategic group analysis to understand the competitive landscape at a macro level.

In other words: don’t view each competitor in isolation.

Instead, find the challenges and opportunities for each group.

It reveals what makes each competing group successful or vulnerable.

For example, the analysis below covers different types of competitors for the coffee brand, Starbucks.

I analyzed each group’s varying tactics, strengths, and vulnerabilities.

SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis adds more depth by examining a company’s:

• Strengths: What they do well
• Weaknesses: Where they struggle
• Opportunities: External factors they could use to grow
• Threats: External factors that could harm them

Here are some questions to consider for applying this method (you can perform this on your own business/website and on your competitors):

This approach gives you a complete picture of your competitors’ positions.

Use these insights to make smart decisions for investing your resources.

Here’s an example SWOT analysis of automotive brands:

The real value comes from connecting these analyses to action.

This phase should tell you where competitors are today and where they’re heading.

Phase 4: Activation and Implementation

In the final phase, you have to convert insights into meaningful resources for all stakeholders.

You also need to plan the way forward and decide the next steps to update this intel.

Create Useful Deliverables

Here are a few deliverables to create to share your CI findings with relevant stakeholders:

Battle Cards

Prepare visual one-pagers to emphasize areas where you outshine the competition.

Add talking points to counter each competitor and help sellers confidently handle objections.

Here’s a battle card template to follow:

Centralized Hub

Document all of your CI findings on platforms like Notion or Confluence.

Categorize the resources by teams and make this hub searchable for easy access.

Competitor profiles

Create in-depth profiles analyzing a competitor from all aspects.

Marketing and product teams can use them to plan their campaigns and plan the roadmap.

Here’s an example of the beauty brand Glossier’s competitive profile:

Implement a Distribution Plan

Create a dedicated Slack channel to share real-time insights. It helps in quickly sending updates about competitor moves to plan ahead.

Here are a few other ways to effectively distribute your research insights:

• Weekly messages with updates from social media and your competitors’ latest campaigns
• Monthly emails reviewing intel related to changes in pricing, features, and more
• Quarterly meetings with each department to discuss key intel and reassess key competitors

You can also set up alerts about significant events, like acquisitions, leadership changes, and more.

Monitor and Update Your Strategy

Remember that markets and competitors constantly evolve.

Don’t take a one-and-done approach to competitive intelligence research.

Instead, you need workflows to regularly monitor and update your intel.

Schedule regular check-ins with your sales, marketing, and customer success teams to get constant feedback about your competitors.

Key Applications of Competitive Intelligence

Ready to see competitive intelligence in action?

Here’s how different teams can use competitive intelligence research.

Sales Enablement

Sales teams use CI to study competitors’ sales tactics and buying experience.

78% of CI pros translate these insights into battle cards.

As a result, sellers can deliver a strong pitch, handle objections effectively, and present social proof.

This intel also highlights key differentiators against every competitor.

Product Development

CI data helps product teams keep tabs on competitors’ new launches. It also collects customer feedback to map user expectations.

These insights help teams prioritize new features to outpace the competition.

You can also use this data to plan your product roadmap based on unmet customer needs.

Aaron Whittaker (Thrive) shared a great example of using CI data for product development:

Market Positioning and Strategy

Competitive intelligence research examines a competitor’s positioning, target audience, and overall marketing strategy.

You can learn how competitors position and differentiate themselves in the market.

Use this analysis to take a fresh approach in your messaging and resonate with your buyers.

It also helps identify underserved markets that you should target.

Pricing and Revenue Optimization

Pricing intelligence data goes a long way in building your pricing strategy.

Collect intel about competitors’ pricing models to optimize your pricing structure.

Check this data against factors like perceived value and customer loyalty. Then, plan your pricing model to maximize revenue.

Use Competitive Intelligence to Stay Ahead of the Curve

Competitor intelligence turns data about your competitors into strategic decisions for business growth.

As you build your CI research process, keep three principles in mind:

1. Set clear goals before collecting data
2. Focus on actionable insights rather than random data
3. Share findings in relevant and easily accessible deliverables

The real value of competitive intelligence comes from studying the right competitors.

Before diving into research, do a thorough market analysis to find which brands impact your market.

Use our full guide to learn how to conduct market analysis to build a strong foundation for your CI efforts.