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4 months ago
7
Hey there-
Customer acquisition is expensive and a lot of tactics fail.
BUT, there’s a shortcut…
Instead of guessing what might work, study companies that are already successfully reaching your target audience.
Whether it's a direct competitor or just a company targeting your ideal customers, here are 11 ways to reverse-engineer their customer acquisition strategy:
Track their ads - Check Google Ads Transparency Center, LinkedIn Ad Library, Meta Ad Library, Reddit Ad Library for current campaigns
Analyze their landing pages - Look at different audience-specific pages, CTAs, and conversion strategies
Study their content - Analyze blog topics, publishing frequency, their search engine keyword rankings, and which pieces get the most engagement/backlinks
Download lead magnets - See what free resources they offer and how they position the value
Map their sitemap - Website pages reveal targeting, messaging, and audience focus (feature pages, comparisons, use-cases, personas, industries)
Check their tech stack - Use BuiltWith to see marketing tools, tracking pixels, chat tools, and CRM setup
Track social presence - See which platforms they're active on, community building efforts, and organic vs paid social strategy
Sign up for emails - Document the timing, content, and CTAs of their nurture flow
Book a demo call - Find out what discovery questions they ask and what their pitch is like
Scope their employees - Go on LinkedIn and check their team structure. Do they hire a lot of salespeople? Or a lot of specific types of marketers (content, demand generation, SEO, paid advertising, social)?
Check careers page - See hiring priorities (sales = outbound focus, marketing = inbound, enterprise vs SMB roles)
Work through this list and you'll get a better understanding of how a company operates including their target markets, messaging, channels, customer journey, and team structure.
Do this on 2-3 companies and you'll start to spot patterns for what might actually work for your target market.
Take action: Pick one competitor or company targeting your market and analyze them using these tactics.
Until next time,
JP
