The largest player in a B2B niche usually holds an unfair advantage. Research from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute’s Double Jeopardy studies confirms it: brands with bigger market share also carry higher customer loyalty.
Knowing where you sit matters, but most challenger brands don’t have budget for a full market study, and revenue comparisons rarely help either. Against a competitor spread across multiple sectors, product lines or geographies, a Companies House filing tells you very little within a year.
A proxy works better. These are the three we return to most often.
Search volume on defined brand terms
Where you’re up against distinctly named competitors, relative search volume over time is a direct read on comparative awareness. It’s a method we’ve used since the early 2000s, and it still holds up as one of the simplest ways to see who’s gaining ground.
Sequential invoice numbers
An unusual one, but a genuinely useful signal. If a competitor’s finance system issues sequential invoice numbers and you buy from them on a regular cycle, the gap between your invoice numbers each month tells you their sales volume for that period. We picked up the trick from a Figleaves speaker during IDM study in 2002, and it’s proved useful ever since.
Tender and RFP win rate
Rather than sizing the whole market, measure your share of the contests you’re actually in. Deals won divided by deals bid gives you a share of contest for that segment, and the same calculation applied to competitors when results are announced tells you how they’re performing too. It only covers deals you’re invited to, and small sample sizes can swing the number, so treat it as directional rather than definitive.
None of these replace proper market sizing, but they’re cheap to capture, and paired with Voice of Customer insight, they give you a genuine read on competitive standing in language a board will recognise.
If you want help turning signals like these into a proper competitive intelligence view, talk to our team.