10 ways to reverse-engineer your competitor’s customer acquisition strategy

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.

Here are 10 ways to reverse-engineer their customer acquisition strategy:

1. Track their ads - Check Google Ads Transparency Center, LinkedIn Ad Library, Meta Ad Library, Reddit Ad Library for current campaigns
2. Analyze their landing pages - Look at different audience-specific pages, CTAs, and conversion strategies
3. Study their content - Analyze blog topics, publishing frequency, their search engine keyword rankings, and which pieces get the most engagement/backlinks
4. Download lead magnets - See what free resources they offer and how they position the value
5. Map their sitemap - Website pages reveal targeting, messaging, and audience focus (feature pages, comparisons, use-cases, personas, industries)
6. Check their tech stack - Use BuiltWith to see marketing tools, tracking pixels, chat tools, and CRM setup
7. Track social presence - See which platforms they’re active on, community building efforts, and organic vs paid social strategy
8. Sign up for emails - Document the timing, content, and CTAs of their nurture flow
9. 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)?
10. Check careers page - See hiring priorities (sales = outbound focus, marketing = inbound, enterprise vs SMB roles)

Work through this list with 3-5 companies and you’ll soon start to see patterns such as their market segmentation, messaging, channels, and customer journey. With this data you’ll get an idea for what actually works for your target markets.

Happy reverse-engineering!