Competitor Intelligence

Summary#

Competitor Intelligence points five of the heaviest tools in Metric Vault at one rival at the same time and returns a single report covering their organic footprint, their backlinks, what people say about them, what they pay for, and the keywords they rank for that you do not. It costs 20 credits.

Purpose#

Competitor research usually means opening five tools and holding the answers in your head. That works for one competitor and falls apart at three. This workflow exists so that "tell me everything about this rival" is one input and one document — the same document every time, so two competitors are actually comparable.

Overview#

You give it a competitor's domain and, optionally, your own. Five tools fire, staggered slightly to stay inside provider limits:

The results are combined into one hero, a set of quick stats, a short insight set and an action plan, with every tool's full output kept in a collapsible block underneath.

The Gap Finder step needs both sides. If you leave Your domain blank, that step runs against the competitor alone and returns an honest empty card — and it still costs its 3 credits. Fill both fields.

Benefits#

• One input, five deep reports, one document.
• The insight set is derived from the numbers the same run measured, so the summary and the evidence never disagree.
• Comparable across rivals: run it on three competitors and you have three identical documents.
• Exportable and shareable as a single client-ready artefact.
• A failed step does not lose the run; the other four still render.

Use Cases#

• New-client discovery. You need a full picture of the incumbent before writing a proposal.
• Quarterly competitive review. Re-run on your three main rivals and compare against last quarter's export.
• Finding the opening. The gap step tells you exactly which keywords to take first, with a value attached.
• Deciding whether to fight on paid. The advertising step shows whether they are actually buying the terms you want.
• Positioning work. Brand Monitor sentiment shows whether there is a reputation gap you can position against.

Requirements#

• A signed-in account on a paid plan. None of the five tools is available on Free.
• At least 20 credits of monthly allowance available.
• Your own domain, if you want the Gap Finder step to return anything.

Permissions#

Cost#

20 credits per run. The Quota Cost card reads 20 / 20 credits per run, and the run banner states: Running this workflow uses 20 reports (5 tools: Domain Overview + Backlink Profile + Brand Monitor + Advertising Research + Gap Finder).

That is 6 + 5 + 3 + 3 + 3 — exactly what the five tools cost individually. This is the most expensive single action in Metric Vault, so treat it as a considered purchase rather than an exploratory click.

A step served from the shared cache still charges its full cost. See example renders stored samples with no fetch and no credits. See Result caching and freshness and How credits work.

Navigation Path#

Dashboard → Get Started → Competitor Intelligence

The sidebar entry carries a purple WORKFLOW badge.

Inputs#

Global filters apply: the topbar country picker and the Range control on time-series steps are sent with the run. See Common inputs and validation.

Press Enter in either field to run — the card says Tip: hit Enter to fire. See example fills nike.com and adidas.com when the fields are blank and renders stored samples free.

Step-by-Step Guide#

1. Open Dashboard → Get Started → Competitor Intelligence.
2. Set the country picker if you are not analyzing worldwide.
3. Type the rival's domain into competitor domain (e.g. adidas.com).
4. Type your own domain into Your domain (for gap analysis, optional). Do not skip this — the gap step is a fifth of what you are paying for.
5. Press Run Full Analysis · 20 reports, or press Enter.
6. Watch the five rows in Analysis Progress. Expect 30 seconds to 2 minutes.
7. Read the hero quick stats, then the Strategic Insights and Action Plan.
8. Open the per-tool blocks for the detail behind anything you plan to act on.
9. Use Share or Export PDF on the hero to send it on.

Reading the Results#

The hero. A gradient card carrying the favicon, VERIFIED FROM DATAFORSEO, US · Desktop, the report title Competitor Intelligence Report, the competitor's domain in large type, and the line N of 5 analyses completed · powered by real DataForSEO + live LLM measurements. Check that first number. Below 5 means a step failed and part of the picture is missing.

Quick stats. Up to six tiles, shown only when the figure is greater than zero:

Strategic Insights. A card headed Strategic Insights · <domain> with the badge REAL · NO FABRICATION, holding up to six observations drawn from the five results. Every claim traces to a figure in a block below it.

Recommended Action Plan. A numbered list, ordered so the first item is the one to do first.

The findings the workflow looks for. After the report renders, the workflow scans the five payloads and raises the most actionable findings, then offers a Get recommendations panel built from them. The things it looks for are worth knowing because they are the things worth acting on:

• Gap Finder — how many keywords the competitor ranks for that you do not, and the monthly traffic value that represents. A gap worth $5,000 a month or 500+ keywords is flagged high. It also counts the shared keywords where you rank below them — those are the closable wins, because you already have a page.
• Domain Overview — whether the competitor owns their own branded search results. Owning under 70% of their own branded top 10 is an opening: you can rank against their brand terms. Under 40% is a wide-open door. If they do own their brand, the workflow surfaces their closest rival by keyword overlap instead — profile that domain next.
• Backlink Profile — link momentum. A negative net over 30 days (more links lost than gained) is a window to out-earn them. If instead their authority is 60 or above with a large referring-domain count, the finding flips: they have a moat, and the play is to mine their referring domains for your own outreach.
• Brand Monitor — sentiment. A sentiment score under 25 out of 100, or 30% or more negative mentions, is a reputation gap you can position against.

The per-tool blocks. Each of the five tools keeps its complete output in a collapsible block; the first successful one is open. Where to look:

• Domain Overview — traffic and keyword history, top keywords, top pages, top competitors, country distribution, SERP features. The traffic trend is the single most useful chart in the report: a rival in decline is a different problem from a rival compounding.
• Backlink Profile — anchor distribution, referring domains, toxic links, link velocity and outreach opportunities. Read the referring-domain list as your prospect list.
• Brand Monitor — mention volume, sentiment split, share of voice, channels and top mentions.
• Advertising Research — paid keywords, spend estimate, ad copies and paid competitors. If they run no ads, this block says so plainly and shows zeroes rather than guessing.
• Gap Finder — missing keywords, weak keywords, strong keywords, gap value in dollars, and quick wins. Start with quick wins: they are terms where you already rank and only need to move.

Honest empty states. These are real-data tools. Where the provider has nothing, the block says No measured data was found for "<query>" rather than inventing a number. That is most common on small or very new domains.

Examples#

Screenshots#

Tips#

• Always fill the second field. A blank "Your domain" wastes the 3-credit gap step.
• Set the country before running. Twenty credits is expensive to repeat for the wrong market.
• Run it on your three main rivals in one sitting so the exports are comparable.
• If you only want the head-to-head scorecard, Competitor Battle costs 3 credits instead of 20.
• If you only want the keyword opening, Gap Finder on its own costs 3.

Best Practices#

• Pick the rival that actually competes for your keywords, not the biggest name in the industry. Domain Overview's top-competitors list is a good place to find it.
• Read Referring Domains before Backlinks. Link count without domain diversity is a weak moat.
• Treat the gap block's quick wins as this month's work and its missing keywords as next quarter's.
• Export the PDF at the time of the run. It is your before-picture.
• Follow this with Brand Health when the interesting finding is reputational rather than structural.

Common Mistakes#

• Leaving "Your domain" empty and then reporting that the gap analysis "did not work". It needs both sides.
• Running it on your own domain. Use Domain Overview for that at 6 credits; four of these five steps are about a rival.
• Reading Backlinks as authority. Referring Domains and authority score are the meaningful measures.
• Assuming zero paid keywords is an error. It usually means they genuinely run no Google Ads, which is useful intelligence.
• Re-running weekly. Competitive profiles move slowly and the shared cache will often hand you the same numbers for the full 20 credits.

Limitations#

• One competitor per run. There is no multi-competitor mode here.
• Five fixed tools; you cannot swap a step out.
• The Gap Finder step is only as useful as the second field you fill.
• Advertising data covers Google Ads as reported by the provider. It is not a complete picture of their media spend.
• Brand mentions come from an indexed content corpus, not from every platform. Some social networks are deliberately excluded rather than estimated.
• Each step is capped at 120 seconds; a slower step is dropped so the rest renders.
• The report header always reads US · Desktop, while the underlying steps use the country you selected.
• Saved results are kept for 90 days.

Troubleshooting#

FAQs#

Why is this 20 credits? Because it runs the two most expensive tools in the product — Domain Overview at 6 and Backlink Profile at 5 — plus three tools at 3 each. It is the sum, not a markup.

Can I run it without spending 20 credits? Run the pieces you actually need. Domain Overview is 6, Backlink Profile is 5, Gap Finder is 3, Competitor Battle is 3 for a head-to-head scorecard.

Does the "See example" button cost anything? No. It renders stored sample output for all five steps with no provider call. The banner on the report says so explicitly.

Will it tell me their exact revenue or ad spend? No. Traffic value and ad spend are modelled estimates from measured keyword and CPC data. Metric Vault labels them as estimates rather than presenting them as accounts.

Can I compare two competitors in one run? Not here. Run it twice, or use Competitor Battle for a direct two-domain scorecard.

Does it charge me if a step fails? Failed steps are not recorded as usage. Steps that returned a result are charged even if the report as a whole is incomplete.