Think back to the moment when you realized your biggest competitor wasn’t who you thought it was. I’m Olga Kolomiiets, a CMO driving strategy for B2B IT companies.

Clients often misidentify who their real competitors are. Some focus only on who ranks high on Google. Others think competitors are simply the companies that show up with strong social media activity or frequent media appearances. I’ve seen this happen time and again in my work — and honestly, it’s one of the most fascinating (and sometimes amusing) parts of building a marketing strategy.   But here’s the thing: those are channel competitors, not necessarily business competitors overall. Just because someone’s winning the social media popularity contest doesn’t mean they’re stealing your clients.

True business competitors should be identified based on factors like:

• company size
• number of employees
• number of clients
• revenue
• market share
• and other relevant business indicators (sadly, “number of LinkedIn posts per day” doesn’t count)

Your benchmark should be built on the metrics — or combination of metrics — that you’re able to obtain. And let’s be honest, getting access to that data is sometimes like finding someone who actually enjoys writing meeting minutes. (Luckily, we’ve got AI for that now.)

It’s incredible how much clarity and confidence you gain once you know exactly who you’re really competing against.

Because once you have a clear list of real business competitors, that’s when marketing analysis becomes powerful. That’s when you can figure out which specific activities and channels have fueled their success — and maybe even borrow a few good ideas (legally, of course!).

Curious — how do you define your true competitors in your industry? And have you ever been surprised by who they turned out to be?