Monitor Your Competitors: How to Spot and Respond to Competitor Sales

Summary: If your sales dip and nothing on your site changed, one of places marketing teams  forget to monitor your competitors. Competitor promotions can quietly steal value shoppers—customers who buy primarily on price. Prove it, then defend the parts of your business that deliver brand value.

Why this matters

You can rebuild landing pages, rework funnels, and burn budget on creative without asking the simplest question: did a competitor run a sale? Promotions are powerful short-term drivers but they can mask the true cause of revenue swings. Brands that rely on price-sensitive shoppers will see sharp dips whenever competitors discount; conversion and ROAS suffer even when product and creative are fine.

Industry research supports this. Promotions can boost short-term revenue but over-reliance erodes margins and brand equity (Nielsen). Academic and practitioner guides recommend segmentation and value-based pricing as the answer to indiscriminate discounting (Blattberg & Neslin; HBR). So step one is to monitor your competitors and gather evidence — not guess.

A simple evidence-first process you can apply today

You don’t need fancy analytics. Run this practical experiment.

Step 1 — Monitor your competitors for promos (immediate)

Sign up to competitor lists, or ask teammates to forward promo emails. Record send_date, subject, promo_detail (percent off, bundle, gift). Put entries in a shared sheet.

Step 2 — Map promos to daily revenue

On a spreadsheet, export daily revenue for L30 or L90 to overlay promo dates against your daily revenue. One match might be noise; repeated alignment across windows is a signal that competitor promos are moving your cohorts.

(optional) Step 3 — Inspect cohorts

Isolate price-sensitive groups: coupon users, low-AOV buyers, short-funnel converters. If these cohorts fall when competitors promote, you’ve found “value-shopper leakage.”

Step 4 — Confirm with post purchase surveys

The data above can tell you what might be driving factors, but it doesn’t tell you why. Gathering qualitative data by asking “Why did you buy?” can help you understand what your customers value emotional payoff (packaging, utility, status, gifting, ritual, etc.) and what you can do to protect those differentiators. If answers are purely price-driven, chances are your SKU and merchandising need a different price strategy.

Tactical responses — three defensible plays

Once you’ve proved the pattern, pick one or more of these plays:

1. Counter with a lower-priced, no-thrills offers
2. Capture value shoppers with lower-priced, no-thrills offers. The key is to give value shoppers a product that won’t drag down sales to your hero SKUs.
3. Run margin-protecting promos
4. Favor gifts, bundles, or limited offers instead of blanket discounts. These tactics lift conversions while protecting perceived value.
5. Double down on emotional differentiation
6. If customers buy for packaging, presentation, or gifting, invest in those assets. High-empathy product presentation reduces churn to cheaper options.

Ongoing monitoring

• Add a monthly “monitor your competitors” snapshot to your performance deck.
• Track the % of revenue that comes from discount-driven cohorts.
• For noisy windows (Prime Day, Black Friday), set budget guardrails and promotional rules.

Trade-offs & constraints

• Promotions drive volume but can erode perceived value if repeated (Nielsen). Use them tactically.
• Lowering hero SKU prices is risky. Price-positioning is hard to recover.
• Operational burden: the monitoring is initially manual. Automate only after confirming the pattern.

Quick 7-day starter checklist

1. Capture competitor promo emails into a sheet.
2. Overlay promo dates with daily revenue (30/90-day).
3. Ruun post-purchase surveys.

Counter-argument: Shouldn’t you ignore your competitors?

If you’re selling a differentiated product with clear brand equity to protect you? Absolutely. But for products that are commoditized, value shoppers invariably will at least compare a few offers before making a decisions. But if you run ads on Google and Meta, chances are, these platforms will show your product—and your price—along with a few alternative options. Even Meta will show comparable alternatives via remarketing efforts once they sense your prospects are in the market for your product.

Closing thoughts

When competitor promos explain your dip, you don’t need a radical overhaul. You need evidence, segmentation, and surgical defenses: give price shoppers a commodity SKU, use margin-protecting promos, and double down on the things that make customers care. Monitor your competitors regularly and you’ll stop reacting and start defending value.

If competitor promotions are hurting your sales, 2x Growth Agency can help monitor your competitors, prove the leak, and respond without destroying your margins. We help brands grow sustainably with paid search and paid social media buying, ad creative production, email & retention campaigns, and help you develop smart promos and offers. Start with start with a free strategy call or ad account audit—to get an in-depth action plan. Book a free call today: https://2x.agency/.

Sources & further reading

• NielsenIQ, The changing face of promotions.
• https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/article/2015/the-changing-face-of-promotions/
• Harvard Business Review, A Better Way to Price.
• https://hbr.org/2016/10/a-better-way-to-price
• MIT Press / Blattberg & Neslin, Sales Promotion: Concepts, Methods, and Strategies.
• https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262033206/sales-promotion/
• McKinsey, How retailers should think about promotions in the digital age.
• (Search McKinsey: promotions and pricing)
• Shopify, How to plan Black Friday / holiday promotions.
• https://www.shopify.com/blog/black-friday-cyber-monday

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