When competitor analysis is worth the effort

It is rarely the thing that gets a project approved, and often the thing that decides how it goes. Competitor analysis is not free, and pretending otherwise leads to bad decisions.

The projects that go badly are rarely the ones with the hardest technical problems. Budget a little time for it every quarter and it never becomes a project of its own.

When it is worth it

Look for the gaps, not just for what to copy. The teams that handle this well are rarely the ones with the biggest budgets. Write the reasoning down alongside the decision, because the reasoning is what changes first.

When it is not

If nothing downstream depends on it and nobody is complaining, it can wait. Getting it slightly wrong is survivable. Ignoring it entirely is not.

How to decide

Check what they rank for that you do not. It is worth being explicit about, because assumptions differ quietly. Most teams find the first pass takes an afternoon and the maintenance takes minutes a month.

How to tell if yours is fine

Clear scope protects the client at least as much as it protects the agency. Three things worth confirming about competitor analysis before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Look for the gaps, not just for what to copy — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If you are not sure where your systems currently stand on this, it takes us about an hour to find out.