How to Do a Competitive Analysis: A Step-by-Step Guide

How to Do a Competitive Analysis: A Step-by-Step Guide
When your competitors make mistakes, it makes winning so much easier. But what if it’s you who is making a mistake, while your competitors are off to the races? You won’t know until you figure out what your competitors are up to.

Knowing what the competitors are doing—how they’re thinking about the market, which tactics they’re using, how they’re crafting messages and design—can make all the difference in the battle for customers.

In addition, competitive analysis can be a treasure trove of conversion optimization insights, yet it often gets skipped. And it’s not just a CRO problem—it’s a marketing-wide phenomenon.

A Conductor study found that 74% agreed that competitive analysis is “important or very important,” but 57% admitted that they weren’t very good at it. From start to finish, this post will show you how to conduct a competitive analysis the right way.

What is competitive analysis?
Competitive analysis is a broad term for the practice of researching, analyzing, and comparing competitors in relation to yourself. Companies do it for a wide variety of reasons—SEO, branding, go-to-market strategy, pricing, etc.—and you can definitely use it for UX and conversion optimization, too.

If you invest in competitive analysis, you’ll reap the benefits of clarity and confidence. You can’t beat a competitive analysis if you want to answer questions like:

What makes my company unique? How do we stand out?
How do customers think of my company compared to competitors?
How does the user experience on my website stack up to the competition?
There’s a great deal to be gained from thorough, regular competitive analysis—usability insights, design advantages, a more convincing value proposition, and of course, ideas for testing.