(even if you're drowning in backlog)
Product teams are slammed. Between sprint planning, discovery calls, design reviews, and putting out the occasional fire, keeping tabs on the competition can feel like a nice-to-have. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: it’s not.
According to McKinsey, Product Teams spend just 4% of their time researching competitors. (Mc Kinsey & Company, The product management talent dilemma)
Four. Percent. That’s barely enough time to read a pricing page, let alone spot when they're shifting strategies.
However, staying competitive isn’t just about responding to your users’ needs—it’s about having a solid strategy for success in the market. And that means paying attention to what your competitors are doing.
Your product doesn’t exist in isolation. It lives in a noisy, crowded market where features get copied overnight, pricing models change every year, and entire categories. If you’re not at least somewhat tuned into what others are doing, you’re playing defense with a blindfold on.
Sometimes, losing a deal isn’t about your product being worse. It’s about a competitor having the right feature, at the right moment, for the right customer. And you never saw it coming.
Monitoring competitors is about understanding the market, anticipating change, and using those insights to make smarter product and positioning decisions.
You don’t need to stalk every release note or obsess over competitor tweets. But you do need a system. One that fits into your week without wrecking it, and actually helps you build better products.
That’s what this guide is about.
Yes, obsessing over your competition can lead to a cycle of feature-copying and hurried decisions that steer your product away from your own vision.
But completely ignoring competitors can be just as dangerous. In software, competition moves quickly and market shifts happen overnight (remember how fast you switched from Sketch to Figma ?). Competitor awareness is critical.
The real challenge is striking the right balance, focusing on your users while staying aware of what your competitors are doing.
Product success doesn’t come from building the most features. It comes from building the right ones. And sometimes, your competitors are accidentally telling you what those are.
Like when one of them quietly shifts their pricing structure. Or when they sunset a feature no one cared about. Or when they suddenly go all-in on a niche persona you’ve been ignoring.
Those moves? They're signals.
No one’s asking you to become a competitive intelligence analyst. You’ve got enough on your plate already.
The good news? You can automate a surprising amount of this. You don’t have to go hunting for competitor updates: they can come to you.
Here’s a lightweight setup you can startg today:
💡 Pro tip: Create a “Competitor Intel” folder in your inbox and set up filters. That way, everything gets sorted automatically and you can skim it all in one go.
Of course, if you want to level up, that’s where a tool like PeerPanda really shines. It centralizes updates across emails, websites, and social media and generates relevant insights so you don’t have to dig through noise.
So your competitor just dropped a flashy new feature and your Slack is buzzing.
Take a breath. Not everything a competitor does deserves your reaction. The goal isn’t to copy. It’s to understand.
When a rival makes a move, your job is to evaluate:
Sometimes, the smartest thing you can do is not react. Sometimes you stay the course, because your users, your strategy, and your product vision tell you that you’re already headed in the right direction.
Treat competitor moves like raw data: possibly useful, but needing interpretation.
Excellent advice - but it's not the whole story!
By cleverly keeping tabs on your rivals, you're not just playing defense – you're getting real insights to make smarter and more strategic decisions.
That's your ticket to leveling up from "Pretty Good PM" to "Principal PM".
As with everything in Product, we like to start small, see what works, and double down on that.
The same goes for competitor intelligence, so here are 3 progressive levels of benefits that you can unlock.
Of course, all your customers won’t leave you overnight for that competitor’s Killer New Feature (as your salespeople might believe), but still, everything in SaaS moves fast, and market shifts can happen pretty easily: you don't want to be Sketch when Figma launched…
Don´t be careless about your competitors!
Monitoring helps you avoid “uh-oh” moments in meetings with execs, investors, or customers who ask, “Hey, why don’t you offer this?”
This means that you should be doing at least some form of basic competitor monitoring: don't let the market force your hand.
Being the first to market isn't always a guaranteed path to success, and it's not always an option. In those cases, being the second-mover can be a more strategic approach, allowing you to learn from the successes and failures of others, build better features, and ultimately go to market faster.
One of the greatest benefits is the ability to observe and analyze what competitors are doing well, and where they are falling short. By closely following their launches, you can identify what resonates most with users and why. But don’t just replicate, aim to improve on them. Identify pain points or missing elements that users are still vocal about and deliver a complete and refined solution.
Conversely, another significant advantage of the second mover strategy is to avoid spending precious roadmap time on features that turned out to be failures. Essentially, it’s like having other product teams do your preliminary research and development for you, giving you the insights needed to fast-track your own product development while avoiding costly missteps.
On the core features of your product, you should be leading innovation. For everything else, having a competitor discover what works and what doesn´t, then copying the end result is a totally valid strategy!
All your competitors have different perspectives on the market, as they are serving different customers, or serving those customers slightly differently.
Each one has a different Product Vision that they are pursuing, and that is reflected in every new feature and every piece of thought leadership they publish. Studying those is a great opportunity to leverage insights from industry leaders and get the bigger picture.
As an example, in 2016, when launching Google Home, a smart speaker powered by Google Assistant, Google combined the user-friendly interface of Siri and the productivity features of Microsoft Cortana.
With Google's own strengths in AI, search, and smart home integration, they created a visionary product that shaped the future of smart home technology. The success was quickly replicated by Apple Homepod, Amazon Alexa, Sonos and others.
Picasso had a saying - 'good artists copy; great artists steal' - and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.
Steve Jobs
Getting started with competitor monitoring doesn’t need to be some massive initiative with a 10-tab spreadsheet and a kick-off meeting. In fact, the simpler you make it, the more likely your team is to actually use it.
You know what’s worse than not tracking competitors? Doing it, but then hiding it in a forgotten Confluence no one reads.
Set up a shared dashboard where the whole team can drop updates, feature launches, pricing shifts, social chatter, you name it. Tools like Notion, Airtable, or even a simple Google Sheet can do the trick. The goal isn’t perfection, it’s visibility.
💡️Pro Tip: Pick your top 3 competitors to start. Track their homepage, pricing page, changelog, and customer reviews. You can expand later.
Check out our Ultimate Guide to Competitor Dashboards to get started!
One of the simplest yet most effective ways to keep tabs on your competitors is by subscribing to their emails and newsletters. This allows you to see product updates, promotions, and new features firsthand, often before they’re even publicly announced.
💡️ Pro Tip: Use a separate inbox or alias to collect competitor emails. Keeps them organized and stops them from clogging up your regular workflow.
Check out our Guide to Competitor Email Monitoring to get started!
Still underrated. Google Alerts are the duct tape of competitive research: simple, scrappy, and surprisingly effective.
Set up alerts for your top competitors’ names, product terms, or even key execs. You’ll get notified any time they’re mentioned in the news, on a blog, or anywhere else.
Set it once, and let the info come to you.
💡️Pro Tip: Set up alerts for competitor names, key product terms, and industry news to stay ahead of the game.
Bookmark key competitor websites, pricing pages, and review listings (like G2 or the App Store) so you can easily check in on updates. Make it part of your routine to review these every month.
💡️Pro Tip: Use folders in your browser to keep everything organized by competitor or category for quick reference.
Follow your competitors on platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Social media is often where companies drop quick updates, new feature announcements. The big plus is that you will see firsthand the customer reactions to those posts.
If all of the above sounds great, but also like yet another thing to remember, well, that’s exactly why we built PeerPanda.
It pulls in competitor updates, monitors websites and newsletters, and surfaces the stuff that actually matters.
It's designed specifically for product managers and marketers who need an all-in-one solution to track competitors effectively.
With everything in one place, it saves you time and keeps your insights organized.
Plus, it’s free to try. So there’s no excuse not to get started!
Alright, so you’re collecting the goods: emails, updates, social chatter, the occasional hot take from a CEO on LinkedIn. Now what?
Here’s the thing: raw intel isn’t helpful on its own. You need to translate it into strategic direction. Otherwise, it’s just noise.
Are multiple competitors suddenly courting a user segment you’ve been ignoring?
Did two of them just launch AI-powered features in back-to-back weeks?
Is a legacy player quietly sunsetting some features you’ve been working on?
These are all breadcrumbs. And over time, they paint a picture of where the market might be going, and where there’s room to stand out.
A very important part of growing from Junior PM to Senior PM, or getting into a leadership role is becoming really good at product strategy.
It's all about setting a longer-term Product Vision and Goals, then laying out the smaller milestones and achievements you’ll follow to reach them. In a red-ocean market, this means crafting a product that brings much more value to your customers than your competitors.
Competitive research helps answer the Big Questions, and it makes tactical decisions ("What feature to build next”) much easier for your team.
Here’s where the magic happens. When you pair competitor moves with deep user understanding. That’s the secret sauce behind great product strategy.
It’s not flashy. But it works.
CPOs and Heads of Product: Competitive research is a great way to onboard new team members and train junior staff.
Yes, having the intern do competitor research is too much of a cliché, but that's because everyone has been doing it wrong. Indeed, exhaustively listing the competitors and burying the work serves no one.
Just don’t stop there.
Instead, take some time to review the findings with them. Ask them:
Schedule regular sessions to review competitor updates as a team. Make it casual but useful.
You’ll be surprised how quickly people start spotting trends. And once you start connecting those dots as a group, decision-making gets faster and way more grounded.
💡 Pro tip: Rotate the responsibility each month. Let a different team member give a quick “competitor update” at your team standup. It keeps the info fresh and everyone invested.
Keeping an eye on your competition isn’t about copying features or chasing trends.
It’s about building clarity on what’s happening in your market, what matters to your users, and how your product can win.
When your team understands the competitive landscape, you make better bets. You respond faster. You tell a stronger story in sales conversations. And you ship things that actually move the needle.
So don’t overthink it. Start small. Build the habit. Use tools (like PeerPanda) that make it easier.
And remember: staying competitive isn’t about knowing everything. It’s about knowing just enough, and acting smarter because of it.
✅ Balance your focus
Users first, always. But reserve a little brain space for watching the field. That 10% competitive awareness goes a long way.
✅ Start small, keep it consistent
Track 2–3 core competitors. Use automation. Set aside 20 minutes a week to check in.
✅ Build a basic system
A dashboard, email folder, Google Alerts, whatever works for your team. It doesn’t have to be fancy; it just has to live somewhere visible.
✅ Look for signals, not noise
Not every launch is meaningful. Learn to separate the fluff from the moves that actually matter.
✅ Make it a team habit
Involve your PMs, PMMs, and even CS or Sales. Competitive awareness works best when it's not stuck in one person’s head.
✅ Use PeerPanda (shameless plug, but still true)
One place to track updates, email announcements, website changes, and social signals without losing your mind. And yep, it’s free to start.
You don’t need to turn your team into spies. You just need to stay aware. When done right, competitive monitoring sharpens your roadmap, inspires better positioning, and helps you avoid slow, expensive mistakes.
It’s not about reacting. It’s about staying ready.
And if you’re reading this? You’re already ahead of most.
Businesses stay competitive by focusing on their customers' needs while remaining aware of their competitors' moves. This balance ensures that they can innovate and respond to threats or opportunities in the market.
Monitoring competitors helps you stay informed about market changes, new product features, and strategies that could impact your business. It allows you to respond proactively, rather than reactively, to industry shifts.
In fast-moving industries like SaaS, it’s essential to monitor competitors regularly: weekly or monthly. Setting up automated tools like PeerPanda helps you track changes without the need for manual research, ensuring you’re always up-to-date.
You can keep track of competitors by setting up Google Alerts, subscribing to their newsletters, monitoring their social media, and using automated tools like PeerPanda to centralize insights on their activities, such as product launches and pricing changes.
Monitor your Competitors with PeerPanda and stay one step ahead !
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