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Competitors

Competitors

Track your competitive landscape across AI assistants.

The Competitors feature helps you define and track your competitive landscape. PromptFern monitors how AI models position you against these competitors.

Why Track Competitors?

When users ask AI assistants questions like "Compare [your brand] vs [competitor]" or "Best alternatives to [competitor]", understanding these responses is crucial. Competitor tracking helps you:

  • Benchmark visibility against direct competitors
  • Track share of voice in AI responses
  • Identify positioning gaps where competitors outperform
  • Discover new competitors AI models group you with

Adding Competitors

Navigate to Competitors

From your workspace, click Competitors in the sidebar.

Click Add Competitor

Enter the competitor details:

FieldDescription
NameCompetitor's brand name
WebsiteTheir primary domain
RelationType of competitor (see below)
TagsOptional labels for grouping
NotesInternal notes about this competitor

Set the relation type

Choose how this competitor relates to your brand:

  • Direct: Head-to-head competitor in your market
  • Indirect: Competes in adjacent markets or for mindshare
  • My Brand: Mark your own brand for visibility tracking
  • Ignored: Track but exclude from competitive metrics

Save

Click Save to add the competitor. They'll now be tracked across your monitors.

Competitor Relations

Understanding competitor types helps you focus analysis:

Direct Competitors

These are your primary competition—companies targeting the same customers with similar products.

Example: If you're Notion, direct competitors might be Coda, Confluence, and Obsidian.

Indirect Competitors

These compete for attention or budget but aren't head-to-head rivals.

Example: For Notion, indirect competitors might include Google Docs, Airtable, or even email.

My Brand

Mark your own brand to track your visibility metrics. This ensures your brand appears in competitive dashboards.

Ignored

Track mentions but exclude from competitive metrics. Useful for:

  • Related products you own
  • Brands AI confuses with yours
  • Historical competitors no longer relevant

Organizing with Tags

Use tags to group competitors for analysis:

Example tags:

  • enterprise — Enterprise-focused competitors
  • smb — Small business focused
  • open-source — Open source alternatives
  • feature-overlap — Similar core features
  • pricing-tier — Same price range

Tags help you filter competitors when analyzing specific segments.

Competitive Analysis

Overview Dashboard

The Overview page shows competitive metrics:

  • Share of Voice: How often you're mentioned vs competitors
  • Ranking: Your position in competitive responses
  • Trend: How visibility is changing over time

Response Analysis

When viewing responses, competitor mentions are highlighted:

  • See which competitors appear with your brand
  • Track when competitors are recommended instead of you
  • Identify prompts where competitors dominate

Citation Comparison

Compare which sources cite you vs competitors:

  • Identify sources favoring competitors
  • Find content gaps to address
  • Discover outreach opportunities

Competitive Prompts

Create comparison prompts in your monitors to directly track competitive positioning:

Head-to-head comparisons

Compare [your brand] vs [competitor]
[Your brand] or [competitor] for [use case]
Pros and cons of [your brand] vs [competitor]

Alternative searches

Best alternatives to [competitor]
[Competitor] alternatives for [use case]
Switch from [competitor] to what?

Category rankings

Best [category] tools ranked
Top 10 [category] software
[Category] market leaders

Best Practices

Start with 5-10 competitors

Focus on your most important competitors first. You can always add more later.

Include category leaders

Even if they're not direct competitors, track category leaders to understand how AI models structure recommendations.

Review regularly

Competitive landscapes change. Review your competitor list quarterly:

  • Add new entrants
  • Archive defunct competitors
  • Update relations as markets shift

Use consistent naming

Match competitor names exactly as AI models reference them. If "Salesforce" appears differently than "Salesforce.com", configure both as aliases.

Troubleshooting

Competitor not appearing in results

  • Verify the competitor name matches AI model references
  • Check that monitors include comparison prompts
  • Ensure the competitor isn't set to "Ignored"

Unexpected competitor matches

  • AI models may group brands differently than expected
  • Some matches may be partial name matches
  • Adjust competitor aliases for precision
CitationsWebsite Analytics