How to analyse your competitors' marketing without a big budget

Step 1: choose who to look at

Direct competitors (2 or 3): businesses a customer would genuinely compare you with.
Indirect competitors (1 or 2): a different way of solving the same problem, such as an agency versus a freelancer, or a do-it-yourself tool.
One you admire, even if they are bigger, to see what good looks like.

Search the way a customer would, using your main service and your location, and note who appears. Those are your real competitors online, which is not always who you expected.

Step 2: study their websites

For each competitor, write down:

What they say they do in the first screen, and who for.
The page titles and descriptions Google shows for them.
What proof they offer: testimonials, results, credentials, named clients.
The next step they push: a form, a call, a booking.
What they do not say: prices, process, limits. Gaps here are opportunities.

Step 3: see their Google ads

Google's Ads Transparency Center is a searchable hub of ads served from verified advertisers across Search, YouTube and the Display network.¹ You can look up an advertiser, see the ads they have run, see which regions the ads were shown in, and check each ad's format and the last date it ran.¹ It will not show you their budget or results, but it shows what messages they are testing.

Step 4: see their Meta ads

The Meta Ad Library is a place where you can search for ads running across Meta products, including Facebook and Instagram.² For all ads you can see those that are currently active.² Search for a competitor by name and look at their offers, images and calls to action. Notice how long an ad has been running: businesses tend to keep what works.

Step 5: compare yourself in the ad auction

If you run Google Ads, the auction insights report lets you compare your performance with other advertisers in the same auctions.³ It shows:³

Impression share: how many of the possible impressions you actually got.
Overlap rate: how often another advertiser's ad showed when yours did.
Position above rate: how often their ad appeared above yours when both showed (Search only).
Outranking share: how often your ad ranked higher than theirs, or showed when theirs did not.

Google notes that the report does not show insights when your impression share is below 10 percent.³ So it is most useful once you have some data.

Step 6: look at their reputation

Read competitors' Google reviews, especially the three-star ones, because they show what customers wish was better. Note how often they respond, and what they respond with. See my guide on getting Google reviews for what good looks like.

Step 7: turn it into decisions

Put what you found into a simple table with a row for each competitor and columns for message, proof, offer, ads, reviews and weakness. Then answer three questions:

What does everyone say, so that saying it too makes you invisible?
What do customers complain about that nobody addresses?
What can you say or prove that none of them can?

What not to do

Do not copy. Copying a competitor's message makes you a second-best version of them.
Do not assume their ads work. You can see what they run, not what it earns them.
Do not make comparison claims you cannot prove. Claims about competitors need evidence under New Zealand law. See NZ marketing rules.
Stick to public information. Everything above is public. There is no need to pose as a customer to get more.

How often to do it

Do the full exercise once, then a quick check every quarter. Markets move, but not that fast, and constantly watching competitors can make you reactive instead of clear about what you offer.

A competitor review is part of the audit in my strategy work. If you want a second pair of eyes, say hello.

References

Announcing the launch of the new Ads Transparency Center (29 March 2023). Google.
What is the Meta Ad Library and how do I search it?. Facebook Help Centre (Meta).
Use auction insights to compare performance. Google Ads Help.