Benchmarking for Business: How to Learn from the Best Competitors

Your competitors have already made some of the mistakes for you. Benchmarking helps turn their experience into your advantage.

A competitor launches a podcast, partners with an influencer or opens a WhatsApp channel, and the marketing team immediately wants to do the same. But not every competitor move is worth copying: first you need to understand what actually works and why. That's exactly what benchmarking for business helps with.

In this guide we explain:

• what a benchmark is and what benchmarking is;
• why a business needs benchmarking;
• which types of benchmarking exist;
• how to run benchmarking in 6 steps;
• how to compare your website with competitors' websites;
• how to collect data and which common mistakes to avoid.

What benchmarking is and what a benchmark is

Benchmarking is an analysis method in which a business compares its processes, products or metrics with those of other companies to see what can be improved. Put simply: you learn from other people's success, identify practices that work and decide which of them are worth adapting to your business.

A benchmark is a "standard" or "reference point". In business, a benchmark is a metric or result used as a point of comparison. Say a business finds that the average conversion rate for online stores in its niche is 3%. That number becomes the benchmark against which it compares its own conversion rate.

You don't have to compare yourself only with direct competitors. A business can also learn from market leaders, or from a company in a completely different field that excels at exactly the task you're examining. What matters is choosing the right company to compare against.

Benchmarking can be done by different professionals, depending on what's being examined. Marketers compare customer acquisition cost, conversion rates and ad channel effectiveness. HR teams compare hiring metrics and employee turnover. Product teams compare product and user experience metrics. When the analysis spans several areas, analysts, strategists and managers get involved too.

Benchmarking vs competitor analysis

It's important to distinguish benchmarking from competitor analysis. Competitor analysis looks at other market players broadly: products, pricing, audience, marketing and positioning. Benchmarking has a narrower focus: you pick one process or metric, compare it with a reference point and try to work out how to improve your own result.

The goal isn't to copy someone else's solution. A practice that works brilliantly in one company can be useless in another. So you need to consider the context: the size and maturity of the business, budget, business model, price segment and other factors.

Why benchmarking matters for a business

Benchmarking helps you see your results in the context of the market. A business can think its numbers are good until it compares them with other players and discovers it's falling behind. The reverse is also true: a comparison can show that the business handles a task better than most competitors.

These are the main tasks benchmarking helps with:

Understand where you stand in the market

Comparing yourself with other players helps you understand which results count as low, average or high in your industry, and how well your business is doing relative to them.

It's important to look at the numbers in the context of the market. Say your customer acquisition cost went up 10%. At first glance that looks like a decline. But if over the same period costs across the whole market rose 20%–30%, your business is actually doing better than most competitors.

Find weak spots and growth opportunities

If a particular process works more efficiently for others, you can look into what causes the difference. For example, why competitors handle inquiries faster, acquire customers more cheaply or retain customers better.

Find ideas for improvement

You can learn how others organize sales, marketing, customer service or internal processes, and find approaches worth testing in your own business. The task is to understand the principle behind a successful solution and adapt it to your conditions.

Set realistic goals and KPIs

Market data gives you an external reference point and helps you understand what result is reasonable to expect. Benchmarking lets you calibrate expectations, build forecasts and justify decisions to management or investors.

Make decisions in new situations

Benchmarking is especially useful when a business doesn't yet have enough data of its own: before launching a new product, entering a new market or starting a new ad channel. In these cases market data helps estimate costs, forecast results and plan the budget.

Types of benchmarking

There's no single agreed classification. Benchmarking can be classified by who you compare against, what you examine and what problem you want to solve, so different sources list dozens of types: product, process, marketing, financial benchmarking and more. Here are four common types, based on who the business compares itself with:

• Internal benchmarking – comparing departments or branches of the same company. For example, a retail chain compares sales, average order value and service speed across its stores and learns from the most successful ones.
• Competitive benchmarking – comparing with direct competitors. For example, an insurance company compares its customer acquisition cost, product terms or app experience with other insurers.
• Functional benchmarking – comparing with companies from other industries that have built the relevant process well. For example, an online store studies how a major courier company organizes logistics and uses that to improve its own delivery process.
• Strategic benchmarking – comparing with companies that have successful business models and strategies. For example, a company studies how market leaders enter new markets, develop a product ecosystem or build long-term customer relationships.

How to do benchmarking: 6 steps

Start with a question: what exactly does the business want to learn or improve? The answer determines which metrics and which companies you choose for comparison.

Step 1: Define what you want to compare

First, frame the task. For example, an online store wants to increase its purchase conversion rate. The team compares its data at each stage of the sales funnel with market data and identifies where there's room for improvement.

Then choose metrics that fit the task. In marketing these might be CPA, CPC or conversion rate. In customer service: response time or customer satisfaction.

Step 2: Decide who to compare against

Choose companies that fit your task: direct competitors, industry leaders or companies from other fields with particularly strong results.

Don't look only at the biggest players in the market. Company size doesn't guarantee that all its processes are built better. It's better to look for whoever solves your specific task well. For example, when examining how you engage your audience on social media, the reference point could be a small brand that replies to comments quickly and keeps an active conversation going with its followers.

It's also worth looking beyond your industry. If every player in your market works in roughly the same way, comparing yourself only with them limits your search for new solutions. Experience from other fields helps you discover approaches your competitors aren't using yet.

Step 3: Collect data

First record your own metrics, because without them there's nothing to compare. Then collect data on the market and on the companies you've chosen: internal analytics, reports and research, ad platform data, competitor analysis tools, company websites, case studies, customer reviews and other open sources. We cover each of these below.

It's best to use several sources and compare like with like, for example companies from the same segment and the same period.

Step 4: Analyze the results

Compare your metrics with the reference points and try to understand what causes the differences. Say your customer service responds in 15 minutes on average, and the market reference point is five minutes. It's worth looking at how your process is set up: how many agents work per shift, how inquiries are distributed, what's already automated and what isn't.

When comparing with the market, look not only at absolute numbers but also at the trend over time.

Step 5: Decide what to change

Based on the analysis, pick a few top-priority improvements and decide which ones to test. For example, shortening the checkout process or adding a new delivery option.

Don't try to change everything at once. Pick two or three important growth points, roll out the changes and track the metrics. If you see results, you can expand.

Step 6: Track results and update your benchmarks

After making changes, track the metrics you chose at the start. That way you'll know whether the new solutions brought you closer to the reference point, and which changes are worth keeping or scaling.

Benchmarking itself should also be repeated regularly. The market changes, and reference points change with it. In digital marketing, data goes stale especially fast: ad costs, user behavior, competition and channel effectiveness shift all the time. Some benchmarks stay relevant for only a few months.

Website benchmarking: how to compare your site with competitors' sites

For most businesses, the website is the main sales tool: it's where customers check out the business, compare options and decide whether to get in touch. A systematic comparison of your site with 3–5 competitors' sites shows exactly where you're losing leads. Here's how to check:

User experience (UX)

Go through the sites as a customer would: how many clicks it takes to submit your details or make a purchase, how clear the offer is on the first screen, how the site looks on mobile, and whether there are trust signals like reviews, a portfolio and visible contact details. Record the differences in a simple table. The improvements you want to test are best sketched as a prototype first, for example in Figma.

Speed and performance

A slow site loses visitors before they even see the offer. Enter your and your competitors' URLs into PageSpeed Insights, Google's free tool, and compare Core Web Vitals on mobile and desktop.

SEO and visibility on Google

Check which keywords your competitors rank for on Google, which pages bring them traffic and what content they have that you don't. Tools like Semrush or Ahrefs are used for this. SimilarWeb estimates websites' traffic volume and traffic sources. Remember these are estimates, not exact data.

Calls to action (CTAs) and conversion

Where is the main action button, how many fields does the form have, is there a WhatsApp or chat button, and what happens after someone submits their details? You can also play "mystery shopper": submit an inquiry to a competitor and measure how quickly and how they get back to you.

How to collect data for benchmarking

You use both internal data and external sources, depending on what you need to compare:

• Internal analytics. The starting point: conversion rate, customer acquisition cost, average order value, inquiry handling time or repeat purchase rate. Pull the data from Google Analytics, Google Search Console and your CRM, and compare it with market reference points.
• Industry research and open statistics. Research firms, agencies and major platforms regularly publish data on markets and metrics. Watch the date: in fast-moving markets, even year-old data may no longer reflect reality.
• Analytics tools and ad platforms. These help you estimate demand, traffic and advertising activity. For example, Google Trends and Google Keyword Planner show search trends, and Meta Ad Library shows competitors' active ads on Facebook and Instagram.
• Public company information. Websites, apps, annual reports, presentations, case studies, job openings and media coverage reveal products, pricing, service and technology. Job ads, for example, show which specialists and technologies a company needs.
• Customer experience. Some information you can collect yourself: place an order with a competitor, submit an inquiry, contact support, install the app or sign up. That way you can compare the number of steps to purchase, response speed or payment and delivery options.
• Customer reviews. Reviews on Google, Facebook and other platforms show what customers praise a company for and what they complain about. Especially useful when comparing service.

To process large volumes of reviews, ads and data, you can use AI tools. We explain how to do it right in our guide to AI marketing strategy.

Often the numbers you need simply aren't available. Competitors won't disclose their conversion rate, customer acquisition cost or retention rate. In these cases you can use industry averages, indirect metrics or your own check of the visible part of the process. It's worth supplementing open sources with conversations with peers and experts and the results of external audits.

It's also important to understand the limits of the data and to separate facts from interpretation. A competitor's large follower count is a fact, but it doesn't tell you how successful their marketing is: part of the audience may be inactive or may never buy at all.

Common benchmarking mistakes

Benchmarking can lead to wrong conclusions if you pick unsuitable data or simply imitate other companies. These are the most common mistakes:

Analysis without a goal

Sometimes businesses collect competitors' prices and metrics and browse their websites and social media just to "get to know the market". The result is lots of information, but it's unclear what conclusions to draw from it. Without comparison criteria, the analysis turns into a collection of observations.

Comparing with companies that are too different

A neighborhood shop gains nothing from directly comparing its sales, ad budgets or team size with a national chain. Take into account the size and maturity of the business, geography, business model, price segment and other conditions.

Comparing metrics under different conditions

Even identical metrics can mean different things. It's wrong to compare a B2B campaign directly with an online store's advertising. Seasonality, the ad channel and the period of the analysis also affect the numbers. The holiday season, for example, changes buyer behavior in many industries, from Black Friday to the end of the year. Only compare under comparable conditions.

Using outdated data

Benchmarks change over time, and in digital marketing this happens especially fast. Performance marketing metrics, for example, should be updated every two to three months, or at least once a quarter.

Copying other people's solutions

If a competitor launches a podcast, a loyalty program or a new ad format, that alone isn't a reason to do the same. First understand what problem the tool solves and whether it fits your business. Businesses that watch competitors too closely risk everyone looking the same, instead of looking for advantages of their own.

Fitting the results to a decision already made

Sometimes a business first decides it wants to launch a new project, and only then looks for data to confirm the idea. At that point benchmarking no longer helps make a decision; it just justifies one that's already been made. So frame the question first, and only then collect and analyze data.

How RJL Studio helps businesses learn from competitors

At RJL Studio we run digital benchmarking for websites: we compare your site with 3–5 competitors on user experience, speed, Google visibility and calls to action, and deliver a report with clear priorities. Based on the findings, we redesign and rebuild what's needed, improve the user experience and grow the site through organic search (SEO).

Want to know how your website stacks up against the competition? Get in touch and we'll come back to you with an audit proposal.

Benchmarking FAQ

What's the difference between benchmarking and competitor analysis?

Competitor analysis examines market players broadly: products, pricing, audience and positioning. Benchmarking focuses on one metric or process, compares it with a reference point and looks for ways to improve your result.

How often should you do benchmarking?

It depends on the metric. Digital marketing and advertising metrics change fast, so update them roughly every quarter. More stable metrics, like site structure or the service process, can be checked once or twice a year.

Which tools are right for website benchmarking?

For speed: PageSpeed Insights. For SEO and keywords: Semrush or Ahrefs. For traffic estimates: SimilarWeb. For competitors' ads: Meta Ad Library. And for your own data: Google Analytics and Google Search Console.

Does a small business need benchmarking?

Yes, and for a small business it pays off especially well. A simple comparison of your website, pricing and service against a few local competitors quickly shows where you're losing customers, without a big research budget.

Is it OK to copy ideas from competitors' websites?

Learning from the principle is fine and recommended, for example a short form structure or a clear price display. Copying design, copy or images isn't allowed, and it doesn't work anyway: the point of benchmarking is to find your own unique advantage.