See what they’re doing, then do it better
Your competitors are already showing you what works: the words they use, the ads they run, the places they get found. Here are the tools I use to see it, and how to turn what you find into more work for you.
Henny Maltby25 years in marketing · Growth Hub Premier Partner
!Sound familiar? A competitor keeps winning the jobs you should be getting, and you’re not sure why.
Every competitor you have is running a free experiment for you. They’ve paid for the ads, written the pages and tested the offers. All you have to do is look.
Back in 2018 I wrote a long list of tools for this. Most of them have changed, a few have disappeared, and AI has made the whole job much quicker. So here’s the short version: the tools worth using now, and what to actually do with what they show you.
The goal isn’t to copy anyone. It’s to see where they’re winning, where they’re weak, and where you can step in and take the work.
You don’t need to spend more than your competitors. You need to know more than them.
Try it today
This prompt turns ChatGPT or Claude into your own competitor researcher. In about ten minutes you’ll know where your competitors are weak, the gap you can own, and three changes to make on your website so more people choose you instead.
Pop your name and email in to get the full prompt, then paste in the words from your competitors’ websites and a few of their reviews.
Act as an experienced marketing consultant for small UK businesses.
My business: [what you do, where, and who for]
My competitors: [names and website addresses]
Below I have pasted the words from each competitor’s home page and some of their customer reviews: [paste here]
For each competitor, tell me:
1. What they are promising and who they are aiming at.
2. What customers love about them and what they complain about.
3. Where they are weak or saying nothing.
Then compare them with my business: [what makes you different, your prices if you share them, your best reviews]
Finally, give me:
1. Three gaps in the market I could own.
2. A new headline for my home page that makes me stand out next to them.
3. Three things to change on my website this month so more people choose me.
Use plain English, be honest, and ask me questions if anything is unclear.
The tools
You don’t need all of these. Start with the free ones and only pay for more when you know what you’re looking for.
Type in a competitor’s website and see the searches they’re found for, the pages bringing them visitors and who links to them. Both have free versions, and the Semrush competitor tools are a good place to start.
Use it for: finding the searches you’re missing out on
Gives you a rough idea of how many visitors a competitor gets and where they come from, such as Google, social media or other websites.
Use it for: seeing which channels work in your market
Shows what a competitor’s website is built with: the booking system, chat, email tools and tracking they use. Both have a free browser extension.
Use it for: spotting tools that help them win enquiries
Both are free. The Meta Ad Library and its Google version show you every advert a business is running right now on Facebook, Instagram and Google, with the words and pictures they use.
Use it for: seeing which offers they’re putting money behind
Read your competitors’ reviews, good and bad. Customers tell you exactly what they love and what lets them down.
Use it for: finding the gaps you can fill
Ask them who they’d recommend for what you do in your area. More and more people search this way, so see who gets named and who doesn’t.
Use it for: checking if AI recommends you or them
What to look for
Every complaint in a competitor’s reviews is a reason for a customer to choose you instead.
Using AI
The slowest part of competitor research used to be reading everything and making sense of it. AI is brilliant at that.
Copy the words from a competitor’s home page, or a handful of their reviews, into ChatGPT or Claude and ask it what they’re promising, who they’re aiming at and what’s missing. Do that for three competitors and you’ll see the gaps in your market in about ten minutes.
Then ask the AI tools straight out who they’d recommend for what you do in your town. If your competitors are named and you’re not, that’s worth fixing, because a growing number of people now ask AI before they ever look at Google.
Two free tools I still use every week: Google Alerts, which emails you whenever a competitor is mentioned online, and the Meta Ad Library, which shows every advert they’re running.
If you’d like me to walk you through it properly, my Know Your Competition course in the AI Marketing Academy takes you step by step, so you come out knowing exactly where your competitors fall short and the gap you can own.
Losing work to the same few competitors?
Find out exactly where your competitors fall short, the gap you can own, and how to say it on your website so more of the work comes to you. The AI Marketing Academy opens on 14 November.
Your first hour
You can do all of this in about an hour with free tools. Keep your notes in one place so you can check again in three months.
Want to keep tabs on them as you go? The Growth Hack Your Competitors course shows you who helps them win, the quick wins you can take from it and how to track what they do over time. Rather I did it for you? I run competitor audits for small businesses: I look at what your competitors are doing well, where they’re found, what AI says about them, and give you a clear plan to win the work instead.
The AI Marketing Academy
Build an AI marketing team that works for your business. You teach it, your agents do the work, and you stay in control.
Knowing exactly where your competitors fall short is how you start winning the work they’re getting now. The course that covers it is Know Your Competition.
It’s real marketing, powered by AI, and it opens on 14 November.
Your questions answered
The questions I’m asked most about checking out the competition.
Start with free tools. Search for what you do on Google and in ChatGPT, read their reviews, look up their adverts in the Meta Ad Library and Google Ads Transparency Center, and use the free versions of Semrush or Ahrefs to see what searches they are found for.
Yes. Everything here is public information: their website, their reviews, their adverts and how they show up in search. You are looking at what any customer can see, just more carefully.
For most small businesses, a mix of Google, Google Alerts, the Meta Ad Library and the free version of Semrush will tell you plenty. Add ChatGPT or Claude to make sense of what you find.
A proper look every three months is enough for most small businesses, with Google Alerts letting you know about anything new in between.
Want to talk it through first?
My private 1:1 marketing sessions are worth £150 an hour, and your first hour is free. We’ll look at what your competitors are doing better and how to win the work instead.
Pink Elephant AI Marketing Academy
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