Competitive Baseline Audit (Onboarding)

Competitive Baseline Audit (Onboarding)

1. 01

   Freeze the client's own numbers before pulling any competitor data

   Export 90 days of paid spend, organic sessions, and conversion rates into a locked sheet. Every later comparison is only as trustworthy as this baseline, and agencies that skip it end up arguing about whose dashboard is right instead of what to do next.

2. 02

   Name the three competitors the client actually loses deals to, not the three they fear

   Ask the sales lead who appears in lost-deal notes. A global traffic platform such as Similarweb will happily return the largest player in the category, which is rarely the one taking the account.

3. 03

   Map each competitor to the channel where they are visibly spending

   Display and native placements, search rankings, and tender or procurement wins are three different evidence trails. Adbeat covers the paid creative trail; Sell to State covers public contract awards across 194 countries when the client sells into government or enterprise procurement.

4. 04

   Record what is observable versus what is inferred, in separate columns

   Ad copy and landing pages are observable. Budget estimates and intent are inferred. Labeling the difference up front stops a pitch deck from presenting a modeled number as a measured one.

5. 05

   Set a single comparison window and hold every source to it

   Pick 30 or 90 days and re-pull each source against that window. Mixed windows produce trend lines that look like competitor surges when they are just calendar drift.

6. 06

   Write a one-page read that states the strategic implication, not the data dump

   Three findings maximum, each paired with the client decision it should change. The intelligence is the interpretation; the raw export is the commodity.

7. 07

   Schedule the refresh cadence and name the owner before the kickoff call ends

   Weekly for active campaigns, monthly for brand and market tracking. An unowned recurring pull quietly dies by week three, and the retainer conversation gets harder without it.