# Competitor Profiling — Marketing Skill for AI Agents

A useful competitor profile is fact-based (every claim traceable to a scraped page, review, or SEO metric), structured on a shared template so profiles compare side by side, and dated because it's a snapshot. The process runs in three phases: scrape key pages (homepage, pricing, features, about, customers, integrations, changelog) with a tool like Firecrawl; pull quantitative data (domain rank, backlinks, referring domains, ranked keywords, organic traffic, closest organic competitors) with a tool like DataForSEO; then synthesize, cross-referencing claims against the data — if they claim '10,000 customers' but have a thin traffic and backlink profile, flag it. Save all raw scrape, SEO, and review data to dated folders before synthesizing so runs can be re-read and diffed over time, and default to a quick scan (homepage plus pricing) unless the user asks for a deep profile or has three or fewer competitors.

> Maintained by Corey Haines · v2.0.0 · Updated 2026-05-26

Install: `npx skills add coreyhaines31/marketingskills`
Source: https://github.com/coreyhaines31/marketingskills/tree/main/skills/competitor-profiling

## What's inside

**The playbook covers:** Initial Assessment, Core Principles, Saving Raw Data, Research Process, Output Format, At a Glance, Positioning & Messaging, Product & Features, Pricing, Customers & Social Proof, SEO & Content Strategy, Strengths & Weaknesses, Competitive Implications for [Your Product], Raw Data Sources, Quick Scan vs. Deep Profile, Handling Multiple Competitors, Updating Profiles, Task-Specific Questions

### Reference library

- [Profile Templates](https://github.com/coreyhaines31/marketingskills/blob/main/skills/competitor-profiling/references/templates.md) — Ready-to-use templates for competitor profile sections and the summary document.
- [MCP Tool Reference for Competitor Profiling](https://github.com/coreyhaines31/marketingskills/blob/main/skills/competitor-profiling/references/tool-reference.md) — Quick reference for the Firecrawl and DataForSEO MCP tools used in competitor profiling.

## Example

**Prompt:** Profile these three competitors for us: https://competitor1.com, https://competitor2.com, https://competitor3.com. We need this for sales enablement and to find positioning gaps.

**Profile — At a Glance**

# Acme — Competitor Profile
**Generated:** 2026-07-29  **Depth:** deep profile

| Metric              | Value        |
|---------------------|--------------|
| Tagline             | "Ship faster"|
| Founded             | 2019         |
| Domain rank         | 62           |
| Est. organic traffic| 84k / mo     |
| Referring domains   | 1,240        |
| Organic keywords    | 18,500       |
| G2 rating           | 4.4 (312)    |

## Strengths
- Strong branded + comparison SEO (evidence: ranked-keywords.json)
## Weaknesses
- Pricing page last updated 2023 — may be stale
- "10,000 customers" claim not supported by traffic/backlink scale — flagged

## FAQ

### What pages should I scrape for a competitor profile?

Map the site first, then prioritize: homepage (headline, value prop, CTA, social proof, audience signals), pricing (tiers, prices, per-tier features, billing, free trial), features (categories and how they describe each), about (founding story, team size, funding, HQ), customers (named logos, industries, case-study themes), integrations (count and key ones), and changelog (release velocity and product direction). Review pages on G2, Capterra, Product Hunt, and TrustRadius are optional but high-value for praise and complaint themes. Save each scrape to disk before extracting fields.

### I have 12 competitors — should I profile all of them?

No — prioritize. Profile the top 5 first based on domain overlap or market similarity, and default to quick scan mode for a list that size rather than deep profiles. A quick scan covers homepage plus pricing and a domain-rank and ranked-keywords summary; a deep profile adds reviews, technology stack, and full backlink analysis, and is worth reserving for three or fewer competitors or ones the user specifically flags as priority.

### Can I trust the customer logo wall on a competitor's homepage?

Treat it as a positioning claim, not an accurate customer breakdown — companies show their best-known logos regardless of how much revenue those accounts represent. Cross-reference: check case studies for real usage, search press releases, scan G2/Capterra/TrustRadius reviews for company-name signals, and compare any scale claim against their traffic and backlink profile — flag a '10,000 customers' claim that a thin profile doesn't support. Distinguish verifiable named customers from broad 'industries served' statements, and always date the data you pulled.

## Related skills

- **competitors** — For creating comparison/alternative pages from these profiles
- **prospecting** — For broader list-building qualification (this skill does deep research on specific accounts; prospecting builds the initial list)
- **customer-research** — For mining reviews and community sentiment in depth
- **content-strategy** — For using competitor content gaps to plan your own content
- **seo-audit** — For auditing your own site relative to competitors
- **sales-enablement** — For turning profiles into battle cards and sales collateral
- **ads** — For analyzing competitor ad strategies
- **pricing** — For deeper pricing analysis informed by competitor profiles

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Canonical: https://marketing-skills.com/skills/competitor-profiling