Insider Tips for Uncovering Competitor Financial Data

Nate d'Oliveira

The very first things that investors, analysts and potential partners want to know about your company have to do with revenue, run rates, net sales, operating income and a bevy of other financial data. They are the best barometer of success and are valued more than most anything else. They are highly regulated and guarded. And they’re exactly what you want to get your hands on when building your competitor profiles.

A simple web search can show you almost everything you want to know about a specific public company. I

nformation on private companies, however, can be much more difficult to find and, if you do find competitor financial data online, there’s no guarantee that it’s accurate. Competitive intelligence is about the collection and analysis of a lot of information from multiple data points.

The internet, your emails, wikis and Slack channels are full of bits and scraps that product marketers and analysts must gather and curate to develop an accurate and holistic understanding of the competitive landscape—the valuable, actionable insights are the sum of many thousands of parts.

I’ve previously offered some basic tips for uncovering competitive intelligence online. Today I’m going further, with some sources for financial intel on your rivals, as well as some clever ways to build a complete competitor profile by putting it all together.

Uncovering competitor financial data on acquisitions, funding and revenue

Uncovering competitor financial data on pricing

Pricing information is rarely shared on enterprise tech websites, but there are a variety of ways you can find unofficial prices online.

1. Advanced Google search (Company name + pricing): A fairly obvious solution, yet it sometimes is very effective. It can be as easy as uncovering a price page not listed on the main site navigation, or you may end up in the forums or comments section of an industry site. Unwitting customers sometimes share this intel in blog posts, PDFs and PowerPoints.
2. G2Crowd, Get App, TrustRadius: These websites compile user reviews for thousands of software products. Search for a particular company on any of these websites. Use the “select all” shortcut key to select all of the text on a particular page, and then the “Find” shortcut key to search through all of the text you’ve selected. Search for “Price,” “Pricing,” or “$.” 
   

Uncovering competitor financial data on targets and sales

You can accurately estimate rival sales targets and actuals by collecting and combining figures publicly posted on LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor and other employment-related websites. We worked with one client recently to buildout a near complete analysis of EU sales in 2015 based solely on the LinkedIn profiles of it’s Regional Sales Directors and other accounts team members.

Mistakes are made and things like profit and investor reports can end up in an unsecured section of a website. Charts and tables might not be redacted from public-facing presentations. Customers may post sensitive information publicly without meaning to give anything away. The point is that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to secure every piece of content when the market demands accessibility and transparency. As you work through these sources, tools and tips, remember to test your own exposure. You might be surprised what you find.

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