30 minutes that will shorten your competitor analysis by 2 weeks

I once sat down to analyze competition for a SaaS client. I had a list of 23 companies. An Excel file with 14 tabs. Colors, filters, comments. After 8 hours of work, I had exactly… nothing.

Well, not nothing. I had tons of data. Screenshots of landing pages. Prices. Features. Reviews. The problem was, I didn’t know what to do with it. Every competitor seemed „important.” Each had something interesting. And I couldn’t extract ONE concrete insight that would help me launch a campaign.

The client asked: „So what do we do?” I answered honestly: „I don’t know. I need to analyze more.”

Two weeks later I was still analyzing. The campaign was stalled. The budget was waiting. And I was drowning in data that gave me nothing.

Sound familiar?

The Problem Isn’t That You Don’t Have Data

The problem is you’re analyzing EVERYONE instead of the RIGHT ONES.

Because you see, most marketing directors do exactly what I did back then. They come to the team with a list of 15-25 competitors and say: „We need to analyze all of them.” The team nods. Work begins.

And what happens?

You spend a week on a superficial analysis of everyone. You dedicate 2-3 hours to each. At the end you have a presentation with 50 slides. The boss asks: „Okay, so what does this tell us?”

Silence.

Because a mass of data isn’t knowledge. A mass of data is chaos with pretty charts.

Real knowledge appears when you DEEPLY analyze a FEW right competitors. Not 20 superficially. 3-5 in depth.

And here comes the question: how do you know WHICH ones are right?

The 3×3 Matrix: 30 Minutes That Will Save You 2 Weeks

After that failure, I started looking for a system. Something that would let me quickly assess whether a competitor is worth my time before I start analyzing them.

And over the next few years, managing campaigns with budgets exceeding €25,000 monthly, I developed something I call the 3×3 Matrix.

It’s a simple scoring system that in 30 minutes gives you a list of 3-5 competitors worth deep analysis. The rest you can safely set aside.

You evaluate each competitor in three dimensions. Each dimension on a 1-5 scale. Maximum 15 points. You keep only those with a score of 12+.

Sounds simple? Because it is simple. But the devil is in the details. I’ll show you exactly how to do it.

Dimension 1: Quality (Is This Even a Serious Company?)

The first dimension answers a fundamental question: is this a company you can actually learn something from?

Because the truth is, most companies on your competitor list are either startups without traction (who are testing blindly themselves) or zombie companies (that somehow exist but don’t do anything interesting).

Analyzing such companies is a waste of time. They don’t have proven strategies. They don’t have data. They don’t have anything you could adapt.

How to assess quality? Check three things:

Team size. Go to LinkedIn and see how many people work there. You’re not interested in a company with 5 people (that’s founders and their buddies). You’re looking for companies with a team above 30 people. That means they have real processes, real budgets, and real data.

Funding or revenue. Check on Crunchbase if they have funding. Or look for revenue information. A company that raised Series A or has revenue above a million euros annually probably knows what they’re doing. A company without any external validator? Could be genius, but statistically – probably not.

Growth stability. Have they been growing for at least 2 years? You’re not interested in a company that had one great quarter after a viral TikTok. You’re interested in a company that consistently grows over years. That means they have a repeatable system, not one-time luck.

What does this look like in practice?

You go to LinkedIn. Type in the company name. Look at „About” – how many employees? Look at the „People” section – are they hiring? Are there senior positions?

You go to Crunchbase. Check funding. Check round dates.

You go to SimilarWeb or check their marketing – do you see growth or stagnation?

The whole thing takes 3-4 minutes per competitor.

Scoring:

• 5 points: team 100+ people, Series B+ funding, 3+ years growth
• 4 points: team 50-100 people, Series A funding, 2+ years growth
• 3 points: team 30-50 people, seed funding, 2 years growth
• 2 points: team 10-30 people, bootstrap, 1 year growth
• 1 point: team <10 people, no validation, fresh startup

Dimension 2: Rigor (Do They Actually Test or Just Pretend?)

The second dimension is often overlooked, and in my opinion is the most important.

It’s about whether the company actually experiments and tests their approach – or just does „marketing” in the style of „let’s post something and see what happens.”

Why is this so important?

Because if a company doesn’t test, their „strategy” is really just guessing. Maybe they’re doing well by accident. Maybe they’ll go bankrupt in six months. You don’t know.

But if a company has a testing culture, publishes case studies of their experiments, hires dedicated people for optimization – that’s a company that KNOWS what works. And you can learn from them.

How to check this?

Blog and content. Go to their blog. Search the site (Ctrl+F or Google: site:theirdomain.com „A/B test”) for phrases like „A/B test,” „experiments,” „what we learned,” „optimization.” A company that tests writes about it. A company that doesn’t test writes generalities about „industry trends.”

Hiring. Check on LinkedIn if they have positions like:

• Growth Product Manager
• CRO Specialist (Conversion Rate Optimization)
• Data Scientist
• Experimentation Lead
• Performance Marketing Manager

If they have such roles – they test. If they only have „Marketing Manager” and „Content Writer” – probably not.

Tools. Use BuiltWith (free version is enough) and check what tools they have installed on the site. Look for:

• Optimizely, VWO, AB Tasty (A/B testing)
• Amplitude, Mixpanel, Heap (advanced analytics)
• Hotjar, FullStory, Lucky Orange (behavior analysis)
• Segment (data infrastructure)

If you see these tools – the company takes data seriously. If they only have Google Analytics – hmm, maybe, but not necessarily.

Scoring:

• 5 points: publish case studies of experiments, have dedicated growth team, full stack of analytical tools
• 4 points: mention testing in content, have 1-2 growth roles, several tools
• 3 points: have basic tools, no visible growth roles, but site looks optimized
• 2 points: only GA, no mentions of testing, standard marketing
• 1 point: site looks like it hasn’t been changed in years, zero signs of testing

Dimension 3: Relevance (Are They Fighting for the Same Client?)

The third dimension is the most obvious, but also most often misunderstood.

Because most people think about competition like this: „They sell the same thing as us, so they’re competition.”

That’s true, but incomplete.

There are three types of competitors and each gives you different information:

Direct competition – same product, same client, same problem. That’s obvious. If you sell email marketing software for e-commerce, then Klaviyo and Omnisend are your direct competition.

Indirect competition – same client, but different way of solving the problem. And here’s gold. Because indirect competition fights for the attention of the same person as you. Their messaging tells you a lot about your target’s psychology.

Example: You sell project management software for marketing agencies. Your direct competition is other PMs (Asana, Monday). But indirect? That could be Notion (different way of organizing work), ClickUp (slightly different group), or even… Google Sheets (because some agencies still work that way).

Aspirational competition – companies that do marketing at the level you aspire to, even if they’re in a different industry. From them you learn tactics, not product strategy.

Why are indirect competitors so valuable?

Because their client CONSIDERS your product and their product simultaneously. That means the indirect competitor’s messaging hits the same pain points as yours. But from a different perspective. And that perspective can show you something you wouldn’t notice yourself.

Scoring:

• 5 points: direct competition, exactly the same client and problem
• 4 points: indirect competition with very similar client
• 3 points: indirect competition with partially overlapping client
• 2 points: aspirational competition (you learn tactics, not strategy)
• 1 point: company that accidentally appeared on the list but doesn’t really compete for the same client

What This Looks Like in Practice: Step-by-Step Example

I’ll show you how this works with a real example. I’ll change names, but the situation is authentic.

Client: SaaS company offering marketing automation tool for small and medium e-commerce.

Initial competitor list: 23 companies.

I sat down with Excel and started evaluating. I spent about 5 minutes on each competitor.

Competitor A (big player, known brand)

• Quality: Team 500+ people, Series D, 5+ years growth. 5 points.
• Rigor: Publish monthly case studies, have 20-person growth team, full tool stack. 5 points.
• Relevance: Direct competition, exactly same client. 5 points.
• TOTAL: 15 points. ✅ Stays on list.

Competitor B (startup, lots of media buzz)

• Quality: Team 12 people, seed funding from 8 months ago, no growth data. 2 points.
• Rigor: Nice blog, but just generalities. No testing tools on site. 2 points.
• Relevance: Similar product, but targeting enterprise, not SMB. 2 points.
• TOTAL: 6 points. ❌ Out.

Competitor C (medium company, little known)

• Quality: Team 45 people, bootstrap, 3 years growth. 4 points.
• Rigor: Found 3 case studies with specific numbers. Have CRO Specialist on LinkedIn. VWO installed. 4 points.
• Relevance: Indirect competition – same client, but different approach (focus on SMS, not email). 4 points.
• TOTAL: 12 points. ✅ Stays on list.

And so on through the entire list.

After 30 minutes I had:

• 3 competitors with 13-15 points (absolutely must analyze)
• 2 competitors with 12 points (worth attention)
• 18 competitors with below 12 points (skip)

Instead of 23 companies to analyze – 5.

Instead of 2 weeks of chaotic work – 2 days of focused analysis of those 5.

What Now? How to Deeply Analyze Those 3-5 Selected

Okay, you have your 3-5 competitors. What next?

Now the real work begins. But work that makes sense. Because you know every hour spent analyzing these companies will give you something concrete.

Here’s what you should focus on:

Messaging and Positioning

Go to their landing page and ask yourself:

• What’s their main headline? What do they promise?
• What pain points do they address in the first 3 sections?
• How do they position themselves against competition?
• What words repeat most often?

Write everything down. Literally copy quotes. Because soon you’ll start seeing patterns.

Pricing Strategy

• How do they set up pricing? Freemium? Free trial? Demo?
• What are the price thresholds?
• What differentiates individual plans?
• Is the price visible or hidden?

Channels and Tactics

• Where are they most active? LinkedIn? YouTube? Blog?
• What content do they publish most often?
• What ads are they running? (check Meta Ad Library and LinkedIn Ad Library)
• What does their SEO look like? (use Ahrefs or SEMrush)

Social Proof and Trust Signals

• What case studies do they show?
• What client logos do they display?
• What certifications and integrations do they promote?
• What do their reviews look like on G2/Capterra?

For each of the 5 competitors you should have a separate document with this information. Not in your head. Not „somewhere in notes.” A concrete document you’ll return to.

White Space: How to Find a Place Where You Don’t Have to Fight

And here we come to the most important part.

Because competitor analysis isn’t about copying what they do. It’s about finding the GAP – a place in the market where you can win without fighting.

The tool I use is called a Perceptual Map.

You take the two most important variables in your industry and create a 2×2 chart. X-axis is one variable, Y-axis is another.

Sample variables:

• Price (low ↔ high)
• Complexity (simple ↔ advanced)
• Target (SMB ↔ Enterprise)
• Service (self-service ↔ white-glove)
• Implementation speed (hours ↔ months)

You place your 5 competitors on this map. And you look where they cluster.

Real case:

Client had an e-commerce company. We drew a map: X-axis is price, Y-axis is level of customization.

All competitors clustered in two places:

• Lower left corner: low price + standard
• Upper right corner: high price + full custom (but 6-week fulfillment)

The lower right corner was EMPTY. Nobody offered: premium price + great standard + fast fulfillment.

Client raised prices by 40%, guaranteed 3-day fulfillment without customization. After 6 months, margin increased by 65%.

This is the power of finding white space. You don’t fight for every percentage. You define a new category.

Automation: How to Keep This System Current

Last thing I need to mention.

Competitor analysis isn’t a one-time project. The market changes. Competitors change strategy. New players enter the market.

If you do this research once and forget – in 3 months your knowledge will be outdated.

Therefore I recommend:

Google Alerts – set alerts on competitor names + words „funding,” „launch,” „product.” You’ll know when something happens.

Visualping – set monitoring on competitors’ landing pages. Tool checks for changes every few days and notifies you. You’ll see how they change messaging or prices.

LinkedIn Job Postings – every 2 weeks check who competitors are hiring. Hiring = strategic direction. If they’re hiring „Head of Partnerships,” in 3 months they’ll launch a partnership program.

Quarterly Review – once a quarter return to your analysis. Update scoring. Check if new players worth attention have appeared.

This takes maybe an hour weekly. But gives you radar that most companies don’t have.

Summary: Better to Know 3 Deeply Than 20 Superficially

Let’s go back to the starting point.

If you have a list of 15-25 competitors and plan to „analyze them all” – stop.

Don’t make the mistake I made.

Instead:

1. Take your competitor list
2. Evaluate each in three dimensions: Quality, Rigor, Relevance
3. Each dimension on a 1-5 scale
4. Keep only those with 12+ points
5. Give those 3-5 competitors real, deep analysis

30 minutes of evaluation → 3-5 worthy competitors → 2-3 days of deep analysis → knowledge you’ll actually use.

One of my clients applied exactly this approach. After two months he called: „We found patterns in keyword strategy at those three companies. First campaigns gave 180% ROAS. We’ve never had this before.”

It’s not magic. It’s focus on the right sources.

What Next?

You now have two options.

Option A: You implement this yourself. You have framework, you have method, you have examples. This is solid foundation that can already change your campaign results.

Option B: You want to go deeper.

Because what you read is basic version. Foundation. In practice research is much more – purchase path analysis, touchpoint mapping, Jobs To Be Done segmentation, deep competitor communication analysis, message-market fit testing.

Companies that do this more thoroughly get better results. Not 10-20% better. 100-200% better.

If you feel your campaigns could work better, but don’t know where the problem is – let’s talk.

15 minutes. Specifically about your situation. I’ll tell you honestly if I see potential and if audit even makes sense.

→ Choose time in calendar: labroi.co/rozmowa

No commitment. No sales. If after conversation you decide you can handle it yourself – great. At least you’ll know where to start.

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Tom Piskorski Senior Marketing Campaign & Analytics Specialist 13+ years experience in Google Ads, Meta Ads and LinkedIn Ads campaigns for B2B companies across Europe. Managed budgets exceeding €500,000 monthly for over 100 clients.