How do I check what my competitors are doing online?
Most of what your competitors do is publicly visible if you know where to look: their live ads in the free Meta and Google ad libraries, their search rankings from an incognito search, their reviews, their social activity and their emails if you subscribe. Half an hour a month of structured looking beats any expensive guess.
Business owners tend to one of two extremes with competitors. Some check nothing and get blindsided when a rival starts undercutting them. Others check daily and end up copying a business whose numbers they cannot see. The useful middle is a light, regular check of the places where competitor marketing is genuinely public.
Prefer to watch? This AI-presented summary shares our advice in video form. The advice we give your business is personal, not automated.
Why it is worth thirty minutes a month
You are not looking to copy anyone. You are looking for three things: offers they are pushing hard (which usually means those offers are working), gaps they are leaving (services or areas they ignore), and changes that affect you (a new competitor advertising in your town, a price war starting). That is it. Everything else is entertainment. You are not trying to measure their market share; you are watching for the moves that affect yours.
The five free checks
1. Their ads. Both big ad platforms run public ad libraries. The Meta Ad Library (facebook.com/ads/library) shows every advert currently running on Facebook and Instagram by any page; search their business name. Google’s Ads Transparency Center (adstransparency.google.com) does the same for Google ads, including YouTube. If a competitor has been running the same ad for months, that ad is almost certainly making money, and the offer in it is worth your attention.
2. Their search rankings. Open a private or incognito window (so your own browsing history does not skew the results) and search your main services as a customer would: “emergency plumber Bristol”, “accountant for small business near me”. Note who appears above you, in the map results and in the ordinary results. If the same name keeps beating you on Google Maps, why a competitor shows above you on Google Maps (https://bamsh.co.uk/why-is-my-competitor-showing-above-me-on-google-maps/) explains the three factors behind it.
3. Their website. Look at their services and prices pages once a month. Have they added a service you do not offer? Dropped their prices? Launched a finance option or a guarantee? Free page-change monitoring tools can email you when a specific page changes if you want this without the manual habit. If they have a blog or news section, note the competitor content they are betting on: the topics they write about are the topics they believe win work.
4. Their reviews. Their Google reviews are free market research. Read what customers praise (that is their real strength, whatever their website claims) and what they complain about (that is your opening). Recurring complaints about slow callbacks or missed appointments tell you exactly what to promise and deliver. How to get more Google reviews for your business (https://bamsh.co.uk/how-do-i-get-more-google-reviews-for-my-business/) covers your side of that street.
5. Their email and social. Subscribe to their newsletter with a spare email address and follow their social pages. You will see their offers, their tone, how often they post and what gets a reaction. Their email campaigns are especially telling: what they lead with is what they believe sells. This costs nothing and most owners never think to do it.
Two more free utilities. Set up Google Alerts for each competitor’s business name and you will get an email when they are mentioned in the press, on directories or in forums; local Facebook groups and community forums are worth a monthly look too, because that is where conversations about competitors happen in the open. And once a quarter, put your name and theirs into Google Trends (trends.google.co.uk): it compares search interest in two business names over time, a rough guide to whether a rival is gaining or fading.
What you can see, and what it tells you
| What you can see | Where | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Their live Facebook and Instagram ads | Meta Ad Library | Which offers they are paying to push, and for how long |
| Their Google and YouTube ads | Google Ads Transparency Center | Whether they advertise on search at all, and on what terms |
| Who outranks you | Incognito Google searches | Where you are actually losing clicks |
| Their services, prices and offers | Their website, checked monthly or watched | New services, price moves, guarantees to match or beat |
| What their customers really think | Their Google reviews | Their genuine strengths, and the gaps you can exploit |
| Their email campaigns | Subscribe with a spare address | Offers, frequency and tone |
| Whether they are gaining or fading | Google Trends | Search interest in their name over time |
| Press and directory mentions | Google Alerts | Anything public said about them |
What to do with what you find
The trap is imitation. You cannot see their margins, their conversion rates or their bank balance, so copying their offer copies their guesswork. Instead, look for patterns across two or three competitors. If all of them push free surveys, free surveys are probably what converts in your market. If none of them serves a nearby town, that town might be an opportunity or a warning; a small test tells you which.
And remember your actual advantage. Most local competitors cannot outspend anyone for long, but you can out-care them: faster replies, better reviews, clearer pricing. Competitor watching should inform those choices, not replace them. If you want to know whether your own marketing is working rather than theirs, how to know if your marketing is actually working (https://bamsh.co.uk/how-do-i-know-if-my-marketing-is-actually-working/) is the more valuable question.
What not to do
- Do not check daily. Monthly is enough; more often and you are reacting to noise.
- Do not believe their marketing. A competitor claiming to be “Bristol’s number one” is advertising, not evidence.
- Do not click their Google ads to see what happens. Every click costs them money, but repeated clicking from the same source is filtered out anyway, and your time is worth more than a petty gesture.
- Do not build your strategy around them. Your plan should come from your customers and your numbers, with competitor checks as one input.
The bottom line
Your competitors’ marketing is more visible than most owners realise: their ads, rankings, reviews, prices and emails are all public, and the best tools for watching them are free. Spend half an hour a month on the five checks, look for patterns rather than one-offs, and use what you find to sharpen your own offer instead of copying theirs.
Frequently asked questions
Is checking competitors’ ads and websites legal?
Yes. The ad libraries, search results, reviews and public websites are exactly that: public. You are looking at information they published for everyone to see, just gathered in one place.
How often should I check?
Monthly is right for most small businesses, around thirty minutes. Weekly if a price war kicks off or a new competitor appears in your area. Daily checking turns into anxiety, not intelligence.
Can I see what keywords they bid on or how much traffic they get?
Not exactly. Paid competitor tracking tools estimate this, and the estimates are rough. The free version is simpler: search the terms that matter to you and see whose ads and pages appear. That tells you who is competing for your customers, which is the part that actually affects you.
Should I bid on a competitor’s name in Google Ads?
Usually a poor spend for a local business. People searching a competitor’s name mostly want that competitor, clicks are relatively expensive, and it invites retaliation. There are edge cases, but for most small firms the money works harder on your own service keywords. How much a small business should spend on Google Ads (https://bamsh.co.uk/how-much-should-a-small-business-spend-on-google-ads/) covers where the budget does the most work.
What if a competitor is copying me?
Flattering, and mostly harmless. They can copy your words but not your reviews, your reputation or your relationships. Keep doing the things that are hard to copy, and let them chase.
Should I mention competitors by name on my own website?
Generally no. It gives them free visibility, can read as insecure, and comparison claims bring legal risk you do not need. Beat them in the search results and the reviews, not in a naming match.
Sources and checks
- Meta Ad Library (search any page’s live Facebook and Instagram ads, free), checked 2 November 2026: https://www.facebook.com/ads/library
- Google Ads Transparency Center (search any advertiser’s Google and YouTube ads, free), checked 2 November 2026: https://adstransparency.google.com/
- Google Alerts (free email alerts for competitor name mentions), checked 2 November 2026: https://www.google.co.uk/alerts
- Google Trends (compare search interest in two business names over time, free), checked 2 November 2026: https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/
- Bamsh Knowledge Centre: Why is my competitor showing above me on Google Maps? https://bamsh.co.uk/why-is-my-competitor-showing-above-me-on-google-maps/
- Bamsh Knowledge Centre: How do I get more Google reviews for my business? https://bamsh.co.uk/how-do-i-get-more-google-reviews-for-my-business/
- Bamsh Knowledge Centre: How do I know if my marketing is actually working? https://bamsh.co.uk/how-do-i-know-if-my-marketing-is-actually-working/
- Bamsh Knowledge Centre: How much should a small business spend on Google Ads? https://bamsh.co.uk/how-much-should-a-small-business-spend-on-google-ads/
