Competitive Benchmarking Playbook

Whether you're evaluating your brand’s position in the market or keeping a close eye on key competitors, this playbook is designed to help you stay informed, make smarter decisions, and stay one step ahead of the competition.

Before you begin, make sure you’ve created a search for your own brand using the Brand Monitoring Playbook.

Before You Build: Define Your Goal

Competitive benchmarking only works if you’re comparing like for like.

Before creating competitor searches, get clear on the comparison you’re making.

Ask yourself:

• What am I trying to compare?
  Volume, Sentiment, Engagement, or something else?
   
• Which competitors belong in this comparison?
  e.g., Coca-Cola vs. Pepsi is a true peer comparison. But if you’re Fritz Kola, including Coca-Cola may still be useful to understand how much attention you’re capturing from a category leader.
   
• Which channels should be included?
  News, social, broadcast, or a specific mix?
   
• What time frame am I analyzing?

These decisions shape how you build your searches and structure your benchmark report.

Step 1: Create One Search Per Competitor

To create a competitive benchmarking report, each brand needs its own search or tag.

This keeps data segmented, enables side-by-side comparison, and supports reliable reporting in Analyze.

Use the same search-building process in Explore from the Brand Monitoring Playbook – just swap in competitor names, products, social handles, and related terms.

Pro Tip: While you're reviewing mentions in Explore, you can also tag key wins or standout coverage to track them over time – perfect for highlighting competitor moves or brand wins later in your reporting. Learn how to tag mentions for your competitors.

Optional Support:

Use the Competitive Benchmarking Digital Checklist f you need help identifying brand terms, exclusions, or edge cases.

📺 Watch: How to Save a Search in Explore

🔗 Step by Step: How to Save a Search

Step 2: Validate Your Searches

Before jumping into dashboard creation, do a quick quality check. This is the most important step in competitive benchmarking.

Confirm that:

• Keywords and filters are consistent across searches
• There are no naming overlaps or false positives
  • e.g., Apple the company vs. Apple the fruit 🍎
• One search isn’t significantly broader or narrower than the others

Small inconsistencies here can skew results later. Adjust and re-save as needed.

👉 Use the Review, Refine, and Save Your Search steps from the Brand Monitoring Playbook as needed.

Once the results look good enough, save your search. Perfection comes later.

Step 3: Build Your Benchmark Report in Analyze

Build your competitive benchmarking dashboard in Analyze.

Use it to:

• Compare brands side by side
• Track defined KPIs consistently
• Create repeatable weekly, monthly, or quarterly reports

📺 Watch: How to Create a Benchmark Dashboard in Analyze

🔗 Step by Step: Creating Your Dashboard from a Template

Start with the Benchmarking template, then edit the dashboard to focus on the KPIs that are relevant to your comparison.

📺 Watch: How to Edit a Dashboard in Analyze

🔗 Step by Step: Editing Your Dashboard

Step 4: Monitor Competitive Shifts Over Time

Benchmarking isn’t one-and-done. Once your dashboard is live, watch for notable changes such as:

• Sudden spikes in competitor coverage
• Sentiment shifts
• Emerging narratives or issues

To stay informed:

• Add competitors to Smart Alerts
• Schedule a Digest Report for regular competitive media scans
• Create Monitor Streams to view competitor coverage alongside your own

Step 5: Share Competitive Insights 

Share your report directly from Analyze.

📺 Watch: How to Share a Dashboard in Analyze

🔗 Step by Step: Sharing Your Dashboard with Stakeholders

Final Tip

The value of benchmarking lies in patterns, not in one-off snapshots.

Set up your benchmarking report once, then let the insights reveal how the landscape shifts.