Why audit someone else's marketing
Most marketing audits point inward. But the same questions are just as useful when you ask them about another company. How clear is its message? Where does it rank? Do AI assistants recommend it? Where does its website lose people? Answer those about a competitor and you learn what's working in your market and where it's leaving room for you. Answer them about a prospect and you walk into the first conversation with something specific to say.
The two reasons share a method. A competitor audit helps you decide what to copy, what to avoid, and where to compete. A prospect audit is common for agencies, consultants, and anyone who sells to marketers, because a pitch built on real findings about the prospect's own business lands better than a generic capabilities deck. In both cases, the audit only helps if it's honest and specific. A list of observations that could describe any company in the category won't change your strategy, and it won't impress a prospect who already knows their own homepage.
Doing this well takes a lot of collection. You need the company's pages, its search rankings, its ads, its reviews, its hiring and funding, and how it shows up in AI answers, all captured at the same moment. Then you need the judgment to tell a real weakness from a choice that suits the business. That combination of wide collection and consistent judgment is a good fit for an AI agent, which can gather everything in one pass and apply the same standard every time.
Kite is an AI marketer. It researches your business, builds a growth strategy, and ships the work that brings you new customers. Kite audits a competitor or a prospect with the same assessment it runs on your own company, and then it helps you act on what it found. Here's how it works.
How Kite audits a competitor's or prospect's marketing
You give Kite a company's website address and tell it what you want to learn. Kite settles which companies to compare it against, using up to three you name or picking the closest rivals itself. It then collects current public evidence about every company in the comparison and grades the audited company's growth.
Kite's assessment is built entirely from the outside. It reads what anyone could see if they had the time: the website, search rankings, archived versions of pages, ads, reviews, hiring and funding history, and the answers AI assistants give to the questions people ask in that market. That's why Kite can point the same assessment at a company you don't own and get the same depth of findings.
The result is a report on a hosted results page. It gives an overall read on the company, the evidence that supports it, and the moves the company should make next. Kite also saves the findings in your team's knowledge base, so later work can build on them. If the company is a competitor, Kite can turn those findings into your own comparison pages, positioning changes, and campaigns. If it's a prospect, Kite can research the right people there and draft outreach that opens with what the audit found.
- Choose the company and who to compare it with
- Collect the public evidence about the company
- Grade the company's growth, not just its website
- How does my competitor's website compare with mine?
- Read the report
- Turn a competitor audit into your next move
- How do I audit a prospect's marketing before a sales pitch?
- How do agencies audit a potential client's marketing?
- Keep watching after the audit
Choose the company and who to compare it with
An audit is only as good as its comparison. A company's search rankings or review count mean little until you see them next to the companies its customers weigh it against. So before Kite grades anything, it settles which rivals belong in the report.
You can name up to three companies yourself. If you don't, Kite picks them from the evidence. It gives the most weight to the comparison pages the company publishes about its own rivals, then checks review sites and "alternatives" articles for the products customers compare it with. For each rival it picks, Kite states a one-sentence reason and shows the page that supports it. It also lists the well-known names it left out and why, so you can see when a big name is missing on purpose.
Your choice of rivals shapes what the report tells you. When you audit a competitor, name your own domain as one of the rivals, and every comparison in the report includes you. When you audit a prospect, name the competitors the prospect worries about most, and the report speaks to the race the prospect actually cares about.
Collect the public evidence about the company
The audit rests on evidence Kite captures at the time it runs, not on what an AI model happens to remember about the company. Kite reads the homepage and the pages that matter most for revenue, such as pricing and signup. It also gathers the company's search rankings and how often people search for its name. Archived versions of its pages show how its positioning and products have changed.
Kite then looks beyond the website. It collects:
- dated customer reviews, along with the company's presence in communities and app stores
- headcount and funding over time
- the marketing and analytics tools the site uses
- how often AI assistants recommend the company, compared with its rivals, when people ask the questions that come up in its market
Advertising is worth a separate look. Kite can look up a company's current ads from its website address alone, with their copy, creative, landing pages, and run dates, so you can see which angles it's paying to promote and how long each one has run.
Each piece of evidence carries its source. When a source can't be reached, Kite says so in the report's methodology rather than filling the gap with a guess. Estimated traffic is a good example of this care. For a small company, Kite describes the direction and scale of traffic, such as "roughly doubled since January," instead of printing an estimated count, because outside traffic estimates for small sites are often far off.
Grade the company's growth, not just its website
Kite judges the evidence the way a growth advisor would. It works through a long checklist that covers the whole business:
- whether the offer is clear and different from rivals
- how the company finds customers, across search, AI answers, review sites, social, email, paid ads, partners, and events
- how easy the buying path is, from the calls to action to where pricing and proof sit
- how quickly a new user reaches the product's value
- how the company keeps customers and earns new reviews and case studies
- how existing customers can spend more
- how much of its growth depends on a single channel
Kite reads each answer in light of what kind of company it's auditing. A sales-led company with no public signup may be doing exactly what it should, while the same gap at a self-serve product is a real problem. That's the difference between an audit and a checklist. Kite's job is to find the few findings that would actually change the company's growth.
When you want a closer look at the website itself, Kite can audit a competitor's site with the same six-part method it uses on yours. It grades message and positioning, conversion readiness, pricing and packaging, search visibility, AI visibility, and technical foundation, from Excellent down to Needs attention. Kite first decides whether the company is new, growing, or established, because the same flaw matters more at one stage than another. On a competitor's site, Kite skips anything that would create an account or submit a form, and the audit notes where that limits what it could check.
How does my competitor's website compare with mine?
The clearest way to compare your website with a competitor's is to grade both with the same method at the same time. A side-by-side review you do by eye tends to focus on design taste. A shared standard shows you where the other site actually performs better.
Kite does this in two ways. The growth assessment compares the audited company with the rivals you name, so naming your own domain puts your company in every comparison. You can also ask Kite to scan both sites for how well AI agents can find and use them. The scan runs the 24 checks a marketing website controls, covering crawler access, content, structured data, and AI guidance such as llms.txt. It gives each site a score out of 100, with a recommended fix for every check that doesn't fully pass.
Search is where the comparison often gets most specific. Kite can run your tracked questions through ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude for any domain, including one you don't own. It shows which of you appears, which pages each answer cites, and where a competitor's keyword rankings explain why it shows up and you don't.
Related How-to pages
- How to find out why competitors get cited in AI answers with Semrush: Compare the pages and search rankings behind a competitor's appearances in AI answers.
Read the report
Kite delivers the audit as a report on a hosted results page. The report opens with a one-line verdict that gives the overall read on the company and names its sharpest gap. For example, a verdict might say that a company is growing fast, but ChatGPT recommends three of its rivals and never mentions it.
Next comes the evidence. The report describes who the company sells to, how it sells, its stage of growth, its pricing and positioning, how many people search for it by name, and what its customers say about it. Three to five recommendations follow, each with a plain headline about what the company should do, the reason it matters, and the data behind it. The report closes with a few quick wins and a methodology section that explains what Kite checked and where the evidence ran thin.
Kite also saves what the report found in your team's knowledge base. When you later ask for a comparison page, a sales email, or a fresh audit, Kite starts from what it already found.
Turn a competitor audit into your next move
A competitor audit is worth doing when it changes what you do next. Kite reads the findings against what it already knows about your own positioning, products, and customers, then proposes the work that takes advantage of them.
The right move depends on what the audit found. If a competitor's pricing page leaves customers guessing, Kite can write a comparison page that answers the questions it skips. If the competitor shows up in AI answers through a handful of roundup articles that leave you out, Kite can find the people behind those pages and draft a pitch for inclusion. If its ads have run the same angle for months, Kite can develop ad concepts that take a different one. Kite proposes this work in the conversation, and it asks for your approval before anything goes live.
How do I audit a prospect's marketing before a sales pitch?
Audit the prospect with the same standard you'd use on your own company, then open the conversation with one or two findings the prospect doesn't already know. A prospect knows their homepage better than you do. What they don't have is an outside view of how their search rankings, AI visibility, reviews, and website compare with the competitors they worry about. That outside view is what makes a first message worth answering.
Kite runs the growth assessment on the prospect's domain and compares it with the rivals you name. Then it researches the people you'd want to reach. It finds them by title and seniority and confirms their current role and company. It also pulls their LinkedIn profile and a professional email address when one is available.
Kite then drafts outreach that opens with a specific finding from the audit, such as the questions where AI assistants recommend the prospect's rivals and leave the prospect out. It shows you the drafts first. Approve them, and Kite sends them from your team's Kite email address or a connected email account, then reports the replies.
How do agencies audit a potential client's marketing?
Agencies use the same process, with the audit serving as the opening of a proposal. You run the growth assessment on the potential client, name the competitors they care about, and bring the findings to the first call. The report's recommended moves show the prospect what your agency would work on first.
Agencies that work with Kite can set up a separate Kite team for each client. One person can belong to several teams and switch between them, and each team keeps its own research and settings. Once a prospect signs, you can create a team for them, and the audit becomes the starting point for that client's work.
Keep watching after the audit
A single audit captures one moment, and competitors keep moving. Kite can repeat the same assessment later against the same rivals, so the two reports compare directly and you can see what changed.
For something more continuous, you can ask Kite to check on a competitor on a schedule, such as a weekly review of its site, ads, and rankings. Kite delivers the results by email or into your Slack channel. Teams that have added Kite to Slack can also set up a standing watch on a competitor's pricing page or product launches. Kite checks on a schedule, stays quiet until something changes, and posts in the Slack thread when it does.
What you get
A growth report on the company
A hosted page with an overall verdict, the evidence behind it, three to five recommended moves, quick wins, and a methodology section.
A comparison with the rivals you chose
How the audited company stacks up against up to three other companies, including your own if you name it, in search, AI answers, reviews, and positioning.
A website scorecard when you ask for one
Grades across message, conversion readiness, pricing, search visibility, AI visibility, and technical foundation, with three verdicts, two quick wins, and a first-week plan.
Findings saved for later work
What the report found goes into your team's knowledge base, so comparison pages, outreach, and later audits start from it.
The work that follows
For a competitor, this means comparison pages, ad concepts, and positioning changes. For a prospect, it means researched contacts and outreach drafts that open with real findings.
How to get started
Sign up for Kite and work with it in the Kite web app or in Slack. Give it the company's website address and say why you're auditing it. You might say, "Audit acme.com's marketing and compare it with us," or "We're pitching northwind.com next week. Audit their marketing against their two biggest competitors."
Kite confirms which company it's auditing and which rivals it will compare it with, then starts the assessment. The report arrives in the same conversation, along with the findings that matter most and an offer to start on them.
You don't need to connect anything to run your first audit, because Kite collects the evidence with its built-in research sources. Connect Semrush or Ahrefs when you want Kite to include the competitor search and backlink data your team already pays for. Kite asks for your approval before it publishes a page or sends outreach.
Integrations used to audit a competitor's or prospect's marketing
Kite runs the audit on its built-in sources, so you can audit any company without setting anything up. Connect the search tools your team already uses when you want deeper search and backlink comparisons.
Measure search and AI visibility for any company
Common questions
Is it okay to audit a competitor's marketing?
Yes. A marketing audit uses public information, such as a company's website, search rankings, ads, reviews, and the answers AI assistants give about it. Anyone could find the same information with enough time. Kite collects it the same way a careful researcher would. On a competitor's website, Kite reads and screenshots pages but doesn't create accounts or submit forms.
What is competitive intelligence in marketing?
Competitive intelligence is the ongoing work of collecting and interpreting information about competitors so you can make better marketing decisions. It covers their positioning, pricing, content, search presence, ads, and customer sentiment. An audit is a single deep look at one company. Competitive intelligence keeps that view current over time, which is why Kite can repeat the assessment against the same rivals and watch competitors for changes between audits.
What can't an outside audit see?
An outside audit can't see a company's private numbers, such as its real website traffic, conversion rates, revenue, or ad budgets. Kite works from public evidence, so it describes traffic as a direction and scale rather than a precise count for smaller companies, and the report's methodology section names any evidence it couldn't capture. When you audit your own company instead, you can connect tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics to add the numbers only you have.
How long does a competitor or prospect audit take?
The growth assessment usually finishes within minutes of the request. Kite collects the evidence, grades the company, and publishes the report in one run, and the report arrives in the conversation where you asked for it. Follow-up work, such as a comparison page or a set of outreach drafts, starts when you choose which finding to act on.
Can I audit several competitors at once?
Yes. Each assessment compares one company with up to three rivals, so a single audit already covers four companies side by side. When you want the full grade on each competitor, ask Kite to run the assessment on each one. Each report keeps its own link, and its findings go into your knowledge base, so you can compare the companies later.