Almost everything about businesses is public if you know where to look. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, manager, or marketer, this post is your guide to understanding your competitors’ businesses.
1. Find Your Industry Competitors
Your industry competitors offer similar products or services to yours, focusing on direct competitors within your niche.
For example, in the fitness industry, direct competitors might include Peloton and NordicTrack, both offering high-tech home fitness equipment catering to health-conscious consumers.
In the tech sector, Microsoft and Google are direct competitors in various software and cloud computing services, each vying for dominance in the market.
An indirect competitor scenario could be seen between Netflix and Peloton. While both provide entertainment or fitness options, their services cater to vastly different consumer needs and behaviours.
Consider your business’s scale and competitive environment. A local coffee roastery may compete with larger national brands like Starbucks or Costa Coffee but primarily with other local cafes.
For a general view of your digital competitors in your industry, use a competitor analysis tool like Market Explorer.
First, navigate to the “Find Competitors” section and input your domain. This action will automatically generate a list of prominent players in your industry.
Next, visit the “Overview” tab to identify your online competitors. This section provides insights into their market share, audience size, and growth rate.
Navigate to the “Growth Quadrant” widget.
This chart categorises you and your competitors into four groups:
- Niche Players: New or small companies with modest audience sizes and slower growth rates.
- Game Changers: Emerging companies experiencing rapid growth despite smaller audience sizes.
- Established Players: Companies with large, established audiences.
- Leaders: Companies with both substantial audience sizes and rapid growth rates.
Note where each competitor falls within these categories and compare their audience and traffic growth with yours. Identify competitors in the same quadrant and assess which pose the greatest competitive threat.
2. Getting Company Details
Now that you know who your competitors are, understanding the basics is crucial. We aim to uncover:
- Who owns this website (company/person)?
- What is their business name and business number?
- Is their business structure private or public?
- Are they owned by a parent company, or are there associated brands or domains?
Start by checking their website footer.
Scroll down on your competitors’ websites and look for links like “privacy policy” or “terms of service.” Clicking these links, though often filled with legal jargon, reveals the legal entity operating the website. Larger companies may list multiple entities, providing valuable information for later.
In some countries, businesses are legally required to display their business name and number on every webpage footer.
Find out who owns their domain name.
All websites have domain names (“example.com”), consult the publicly accessible ICANN database. While many use third-party services, accessing ICANN directly via sites like ICANN Lookup or Who.is offers reliable details.
Note that some may pay to hide their data, though you can still uncover information like addresses, rare phone numbers, company names, business numbers, and registrant contact details.
Once armed with a company name and number, explore various databases for deeper insights, such as owner and board member details, address, and operational history.
Where is the Business Registered?
Business registration is centralised under government organisations globally. For instance:
- Australia: Use the company name or number (ACN) in ABN Lookup or ASIC Connect.
- USA: Since there’s no national registry, search relevant state databases like “Arkansas Secretary of State Business Search.”
- UK: Enter the company name or number into the Government House portal.
This wikipedia page covers all international registries. For checking employee counts, simply search the company name linked with the term “employee count.”
3. Competitor's Finances
Companies operate under different rules regarding financial transparency. Private companies often keep financial data confidential, while public companies must disclose it regularly. Here’s how to access and interpret financial information based on their status:
Private Companies
Private companies don’t publicly disclose financials, except in the UK. To get that juicy information, you’ll need to use external sources. This blog post covers ways to find private companies’ financials around the world.
This web tool to estimate USA private company revenue, payroll, and number of employees. These tools may not always be accurate, so take the results with a grain of salt. God bless indie developers for their efforts.
In the UK, the Government House provides all the data you need. Once you’ve found the business of interest, head to the “Filing History” tab to see reports. Financials are usually under “Full Accounts.” They share E V E R Y T H I N G. It ‘s awesome.
Can’t find the information you’re after from external sources? You can estimate minimum revenue with a ballpark formula:
Rough Revenue Estimate = # EMPLOYEES X US$150,000
Public Companies
Public companies are… ✨public✨. In the USA, data is released quarterly via the SEC, and annually in Australia through ASIC. The best place to find financial reports is on the “investor relations” or “investors” section of their website. It can sometimes be tricky to locate, but it will be there if it’s a public company.
Some companies are subsidiaries of larger corporations, meaning their financial details might be included in their parent companies’ records. If you’re having trouble finding the data, check the parent companies.
→ Navigating Lengthy Reports
Financial reports contain a wealth of information, though not all of it may be pertinent to you. My advice? Determine what’s valuable, get a quick overview, and move on.
Here’s what I always check:
- Press Release
- “From the CEO”
- Financial Report
- Management’s Discussion and Analysis
- Cash Flow Statement
- Income Statement
- Balance Sheet
- Footnotes
- Conference Calls/Presentation Recordings
Reading transcripts can be quicker than listening, and they’re searchable with cmd + F. The open Q&A sessions for analysts can reveal crucial insights and the overall sentiment during the meetings.
→ Checking Stock Information
Stock prices can be quite informative. I usually google “[company name] ticker” to observe price trends. Combining this with financial reports gives a clearer picture of the company’s performance. For more in-depth stock analysis, consider using these services:
- Yahoo Finance (free)
- Stockrow (paid)
- Koyfin (paid)
- Tikr (paid)
4. Assessing Online Presence
Appearances can reveal a lot. High-quality businesses typically have high-quality websites.
A simple, yet well-designed site that emphasises calls to action, good branding, colour design, and custom images can indicate a successful company.
Messaging is everything. Interpreting qualitative data is just as crucial as quantitative data. By reading a brand’s messaging, you can determine their target audience, demographic, and psychographic profile. Consider these elements:
- What images are they using?
- Are there any product reviews?
- Is there user-generated content?
- How is their copy written?
- What fonts and colours do they use?
- Are they name-dropping clients or partners they’ve worked with?
On the other end of the spectrum, older-looking websites could signify either a failing business or a cash machine! Successful businesses with outdated websites often have little competition and tend to be more B2B-oriented. Alternatively, they might be small, local businesses that don’t necessarily need to be well-optimised.
5. Are They Growing/Investing?
To understand a business’s growth and investment areas, start by looking at their job postings. Job ads reveal the problems they aim to solve and the roles they need to expand their operations. What ants do they need to further their colony?
- Hiring warehousing staff in Russia? This suggests an e-commerce business expanding its Russian operations.
- Seeking Django developers? This indicates the technologies they use and their growth areas.
- Looking for marketing professionals? This shows they have extra funds and are focusing on growth.
A good place to start is their “Careers” page. You can also check job boards and use advanced Google searches like ‘(job OR career OR work) CSIRO -site:csiro.au’
→ Understanding Their Traffic Flow and Sources
Analysing website traffic can feel almost illicit, but it’s crucial. Website traffic equals revenue. Knowing where a company’s traffic comes from can give you insight into their money-making strategies. Although this is a complex topic, you can gain valuable information using free tools:
- Ubersuggest ★★★★ Generous free tier.
- SimilarWeb ★★★ Limited free tier.
- Google Trends ★★★★ Free.
- Ahrefs ★★★★ Limited free tier.
- SpyFu ★ Limited free tier.
Focus on the number of visitors, traffic sources, visitor countries, top blog posts, and target search keywords. As you become familiar with these tools, you’ll learn which information is most valuable to you.
→ Who Is Talking About Them?
Use advanced Google searches to find recent mentions of a competitor. For example, search for “latest mentions of [competitor name]” to stay updated on who is talking about them and in what context.
6. Check Company's Ads
Facebook Ad Library
The Facebook Ad Library lets you search all ads run by your competitors. It feels like cheating. Companies only pay for ads if they’re confident in getting a return on investment. Analysing ad creatives over time as businesses fine-tune their strategies is insightful.
Each platform has trends and best practices. Spend some time analysing what works and why. Go deep. It’s worth it.
- How do they get your attention?
- What is their copy?
- Who presents the information?
- How many shots?
- How long is each shot?
- Is there user-generated content?
- What is their call to action?
- Where does the ad link to?
TikTok Top Ads
TikTok has a similar ads library called Explore Top Ads. It’s nuts. You can search for ads in a country, specific industry, or by a specific company. TikTok is still an emerging platform. It’s the wild west out there! Seeing what works for others is invaluable.
TikTok allows you to see click-through rates, ad retention graphs, and other useful (slightly nerdy) tools.
Newspaper Archives
Old businesses didn’t have the internet, but they had newspapers. And damn good marketing. Here’s a list of free databases of the world’s newspapers to see how old companies advertised their products:
- TROVE: Australia-centric. Digitised and searchable newspapers, books, art, letters, research, reports.
- Europeana: Europe’s history searchable; newspapers, photos, posters, art… 50+ million items.
- Elephind.com: Makes all free newspapers searchable from one place. Newspapers from around the world.
- Chronicling America: US newspapers from 1789-1922 searchable.
- U.S. Newspaper Directory: Newspapers published between 1690-present.
Google Trends
Google Trends allows you to see how popular a search term is. You can see search volume for Google, YouTube, Google Images, and Google Shopping. Use it for topics or specific brand names. You can do some pretty sophisticated stuff with this tool. Google it.
7. Who is Talking About Them?
Advanced searching techniques on Google are effective for tracking mentions of Company X. Use the search query “company name” -site:companywebsite.com to uncover a variety of results. Look for contact information, reports, publications, staff details, reviews, and news articles. While the exact findings can vary, these searches often yield valuable information.
→ Tracking Logo Usage
Performing a reverse image search of a company’s logo reveals where it has been featured. This includes their own websites, mentions, advertisements, and other shared platforms.
→ Tools to Use:
- imgops.com (free and highly recommended)
- ImageRaider
- TinEye
These tools help pinpoint where images are being utilised across the web.
8. E-commerce Tactics
Identifying Competitors’ Suppliers
Use ImportYeti (free) to explore import records for nearly any US company. This tool allows you to view past shipment details, supplier names, and addresses, which can be used to locate Alibaba suppliers. It also includes agricultural shipments, pharmaceuticals, and animal products.
For more in-depth data, ImportGenius (paid) offers comprehensive insights into shipment records and supplier information.
Shopify Hack
Shopify stores typically follow a similar website structure. To discover their best-selling products, append /collections/all?sort_by=best-selling to their website URL. This simple trick will reveal their top-selling items.
You can apply similar strategies to other online stores like Etsy, eBay, and Amazon. These platforms have a range of tools designed to provide a competitive advantage.
