suede-competitor-profiling

name	suede-competitor-profiling
description	Suede-owned competitive-intelligence discipline for evidence-backed profiles of positioning, pricing, messaging, product, proof, and public-market signals. Use when researching named competitors from current public URLs or refreshing a structured landscape. NOT FOR: publishing comparison pages (use suede-competitors), internal sales battle cards (use suede-sales-enablement), or deciding pricing changes (use suede-pricing).
metadata	{"version":"2.0.0"}

Suede Competitor Profiling

Use this Suede competitive-intelligence playbook to turn current public evidence into structured profiles with fact, inference, and unknowns kept separate.

Initial Assessment

Check for product marketing context first: If .agents/product-marketing.md exists (or .claude/product-marketing.md, or the legacy product-marketing-context.md filename, in older setups), read it before asking questions. Use that context and only ask for information not already covered.

Before profiling, confirm:

1. Competitor URLs — the list of competitor website URLs to profile
2. Your product — what you do (if not in product marketing context)
3. Depth level — quick scan (key facts only) or deep profile (full research)
4. Focus areas — any specific dimensions to prioritize (e.g., pricing, positioning, SEO strength, content strategy)

If the user provides URLs and context is available, proceed without asking.

---

Core Principles

1. Facts Over Opinions

Every claim in a profile should be traceable to a source — captured public-page content, review data, or clearly labeled provider metrics. Label inferences clearly.

2. Structured and Comparable

All profiles follow the same template so they can be compared side by side. Consistency matters more than completeness on any single profile.

3. Current Data

Profiles are snapshots. Always include the date generated. Flag anything that looks stale (e.g., "pricing page last updated 2023").

4. Honest Assessment

Don't exaggerate competitor weaknesses or downplay their strengths. Accurate profiles are useful profiles.

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Saving Raw Data

Before synthesizing the profile, persist all raw page captures, SEO inputs, and review evidence to disk so they can be re-read, audited, or reused without repeating provider requests or manual collection.

Directory layout (relative to project root):

competitor-profiles/
├── raw/
│   └── <competitor-slug>/
│       └── <YYYY-MM-DD>/
│           ├── scrapes/    # one .md file per captured page (homepage.md, pricing.md, ...)
│           ├── seo/        # one .json or .csv file per authorized metric source
│           └── reviews/    # one .md or .json file per review source (g2.md, capterra.md, ...)
├── <competitor-slug>.md    # final synthesized profile
└── _summary.md             # cross-competitor summary

Rules:

• <competitor-slug> is lowercase, hyphenated (e.g. responsehub, safe-base)
• <YYYY-MM-DD> is the date the data was pulled — supports re-running and diffing snapshots over time
• Save each browser, manual, or authorized-fetch page capture as raw markdown to scrapes/<page-name>.md
• Save each authorized SEO response or user-supplied export to seo/<source-name>.<json|csv>
• Save each review source to reviews/<source>.md (cleaned text) or .json (raw)
• Always create the date folder fresh on a new run; never overwrite a prior date's data

The synthesized profile (<competitor-slug>.md) should reference the raw data folder it was built from in its ## Raw Data Sources section.

---

Research Process

Phase 1: Public-Site Evidence

For each competitor URL, capture key public pages to extract positioning, features, pricing, and messaging.

Availability gate: Inspect the tools currently exposed in the session before selecting an acquisition method. A named connector is usable only when it is actually available, connected to the intended account when applicable, authorized for this task, and its current schema has been read. Do not invent a tool call from the examples below.

If no mapping or page-fetch tool is available, use a browser-neutral/manual fallback: open the public site, follow its primary navigation, inspect its public sitemap or search results when accessible, record the exact URLs and access date, and capture only evidence visible to the user. Respect access controls, site terms, robots directives where applicable, and rate limits.

Step 1: Map the site

If a current authorized connector exposes a site-map or crawl capability, use its documented schema to discover the site structure. For example, some Firecrawl connections expose a firecrawl_map operation, but that name is not guaranteed. Otherwise build the URL list through the manual fallback.

available map capability or manual navigation → verified competitor URLs

From the map, identify and prioritize these page types:

• Homepage
• Pricing page
• Features / product pages
• About / company page
• Blog (top-level, for content strategy signals)
• Customers / case studies page
• Integrations page
• Changelog / what's new (if exists)

Step 2: Capture key pages

If a current authorized connector exposes single-page fetch or extraction, use its documented schema on each identified URL. For example, some Firecrawl connections expose firecrawl_scrape. Otherwise open each public page and capture the relevant visible text manually.

available page-fetch capability or browser/manual capture → page evidence

Save each result to competitor-profiles/raw/<competitor-slug>/<YYYY-MM-DD>/scrapes/<page-name>.md before extracting fields.

Extract from each page:

Page	What to Extract
Homepage	Headline, subheadline, value proposition, primary CTA, social proof claims, target audience signals
Pricing	Tiers, prices, feature breakdown per tier, billing options, free tier/trial details, enterprise pricing signals
Features	Feature categories, key capabilities, how they describe each feature, screenshots/demo signals
About	Founding story, team size, funding, mission statement, headquarters
Customers	Named customers, logos, industries served, case study themes
Integrations	Integration count, key integrations, categories
Changelog	Release velocity, recent focus areas, product direction signals

Step 3: Capture competitor reviews (optional but high-value)

If a connected search/fetch tool is available and authorized, use its current schema to find the sources below. Otherwise search or browse them manually. Platform-specific or account-only content may be accessed only when that platform is actually connected and the user has authorized it.

• G2 reviews page for the competitor
• Capterra reviews page
• Product Hunt launch page
• TrustRadius profile

Save each scraped review page to competitor-profiles/raw/<competitor-slug>/<YYYY-MM-DD>/reviews/<source>.md. Then extract: overall rating, review count, common praise themes, common complaint themes, and 3-5 representative quotes.

---

Phase 2: Optional SEO and Market Data

First inspect current available tools and user-provided files. If an authorized SEO-data connector is exposed, read its current schemas and gather the same metrics for every competitor. Some DataForSEO connections use the capability names below, but their presence and exact schemas are not guaranteed. If no provider is available, analyze a current user-supplied export or mark these fields not collected; never substitute guessed values.

Save each raw response or export to competitor-profiles/raw/<competitor-slug>/<YYYY-MM-DD>/seo/ before parsing. Record provider, access date, market, device, database, and that traffic, authority, and value metrics are provider estimates. See references/tool-reference.md for conditional capability mapping and manual fallbacks.

Domain Authority & Backlinks

When the connected provider exposes an equivalent of backlinks_summary, collect:

• Domain rank / authority score
• Total backlinks
• Referring domains count
• Spam score

When it exposes an equivalent of backlinks_referring_domains, collect:

• Top referring domains (quality signals)
• Link acquisition patterns

Keyword & Traffic Intelligence

When it exposes ranked-keyword data, collect:

• Total organic keywords ranking
• Keywords in top 3, top 10, top 100
• Estimated organic traffic

When it exposes a domain organic overview, collect:

• Domain-level organic metrics
• Estimated traffic value
• Top keywords by traffic

When it exposes site-keyword discovery, collect:

• What keywords they target
• Content gaps vs. your site

Competitive Positioning Data

When it exposes organic-competitor overlap, collect:

• Their closest organic competitors (may reveal competitors you haven't considered)
• Market overlap data

When it exposes relevant-page estimates, collect:

• Their highest-traffic pages
• Content that drives the most organic value

---

Phase 3: Synthesis

Combine scraped content with SEO data to build the profile. Cross-reference claims (e.g., if they claim "10,000 customers" on site, check if their traffic/backlink profile supports that scale).

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Output Format

Profile Document Structure

Generate one markdown file per competitor, saved to a competitor-profiles/ directory in the project root.

Filename: competitor-profiles/[competitor-name].md

For the full profile and summary templates: See references/templates.md

Each profile follows this structure:

# [Competitor Name] — Competitor Profile

**URL**: [website]
**Generated**: [date]
**Depth**: [quick scan / deep profile]

---

## At a Glance

| Metric | Value |
|--------|-------|
| Tagline | [from homepage] |
| Founded | [year] |
| Headquarters | [location] |
| Team size | [estimate] |
| Funding | [if known] |
| Provider domain metric | [value, provider, market, and access date; or not collected] |
| Est. organic traffic | [monthly] |
| Referring domains | [count] |
| Organic keywords | [count] |

---

## Positioning & Messaging

**Primary value proposition**: [headline + subheadline from homepage]

**Target audience**: [who they're speaking to, based on copy analysis]

**Positioning angle**: [how they position — e.g., "simplicity-first," "enterprise-grade," "all-in-one"]

**Key messaging themes**:
- [theme 1 — with source page]
- [theme 2]
- [theme 3]

---

## Product & Features

### Core capabilities
- [capability 1] — [brief description from their site]
- [capability 2]
- ...

### Notable differentiators
- [what they emphasize as unique]

### Integrations
- [count] integrations
- Key: [list top 5-10]

### Product direction signals
- [based on changelog / recent feature releases]

---

## Pricing

| Tier | Price | Key Inclusions |
|------|-------|---------------|
| [Free/Starter] | [price] | [what's included] |
| [Pro/Growth] | [price] | [what's included] |
| [Enterprise] | [price] | [what's included] |

**Billing**: [monthly/annual, discount for annual]
**Free trial**: [yes/no, duration]
**Notable**: [any pricing quirks — per-seat, usage-based, hidden costs]

---

## Customers & Social Proof

**Named customers**: [list notable logos]
**Industries**: [primary industries served]
: [what outcomes they highlight]
:
 G2: [rating] ([count] reviews)
 Capterra: [rating] ([count] reviews)

---



:
 Estimated monthly organic traffic: [number]
 Organic keywords (top 10): [count]
 Organic traffic value: $[estimated]

 (by estimated traffic):
 [page URL] — [keyword] — [est. traffic]
 [page URL] — [keyword] — [est. traffic]
 [page URL] — [keyword] — [est. traffic]

:
 Blog post frequency: [estimate]
 Primary content types: [guides, comparisons, templates, etc.]
 Content focus areas: [topics they invest in]

:
 Referring domains: [count]
 Top referring sites: [list 5]
 Link acquisition pattern: [growing/stable/declining]

---




 [strength 1 — with evidence source]
 [strength 2]
 [strength 3]


 [weakness 1 — with evidence source]
 [weakness 2]
 [weakness 3]

---



: [areas where this competitor has an advantage]

: [areas where you have an advantage]

: [gaps in their offering or positioning we can exploit]

: [areas where they're improving or gaining ground]

---



 Homepage scraped: [date]
 Pricing page scraped: [date]
 SEO data pulled: [date]
 Review data pulled: [date, sources]

---

Summary Document

After profiling all competitors, generate a competitor-profiles/_summary.md that includes:

1. Competitor landscape overview — one paragraph summarizing the competitive field
2. Comparison table — key metrics side by side for all profiled competitors
3. Positioning map — where each competitor sits (e.g., simple↔complex, cheap↔premium)
4. Key takeaways — 3-5 strategic observations from the research
5. Gaps and opportunities — where the market is underserved

---

Quick Scan vs. Deep Profile

Quick Scan (faster, lower cost)

• Public-site evidence: homepage + pricing page only
• SEO: one consistent provider overview and ranked-keyword summary when an authorized source or user export is available; otherwise not collected
• Skip: reviews, technology stack, backlink details
• Output: abbreviated profile (At a Glance + Positioning + Pricing + SEO summary)

Deep Profile (comprehensive)

• Public-site evidence: all key pages + available review sources
• SEO: full backlink analysis + keyword intelligence + competitor discovery
• Include: technology stack, content strategy analysis, review mining
• Output: full profile template

Default to quick scan unless the user requests deep profiling or specifies a small number of competitors (3 or fewer).

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Handling Multiple Competitors

When profiling more than one competitor:

1. Parallelize only when supported — capture independent homepages or pricing pages concurrently only when the available tool supports it and its quota allows it; otherwise work sequentially
2. Use consistent metrics — use the same available provider, market, device, database, date window, and metric definitions for every competitor; otherwise mark the comparison unavailable
3. Build the summary last — after all individual profiles are complete
4. Prioritize by relevance — if the user has 10+ competitors, suggest profiling the top 5 first based on domain overlap or market similarity

---

Updating Profiles

Profiles are snapshots. When updating:

• Check pricing pages first (most volatile)
• Refresh SEO metrics only through the same available provider and matching market/device/database parameters, or mark them unavailable
• Scan changelog for product changes
• Update the "Generated" date
• Note what changed since last profile in a ## Change Log section at the bottom

---

Task-Specific Questions

Only ask if not answered by context or input:

1. What competitor URLs should I profile?
2. Quick scan or deep profile?
3. Any specific dimensions to focus on (pricing, SEO, positioning)?
4. Should I compare findings against your product?

---

Boundaries

• Do not present inference, stale pricing, traffic estimates, review summaries, or feature availability as verified current fact.
• Do not access private accounts, bypass controls, scrape prohibited sources, contact competitors, or publish a dossier without authorization.
• Do not label a competitor weak, deceptive, or noncompliant without a stated comparison criterion and evidence.
• Do not decide product, pricing, legal, or sales strategy; surface supported implications and unresolved questions.

Routing

• Need a public comparison or alternative page -> use suede-competitors.
• Need a sales battle card -> use suede-sales-enablement.
• Need review and forum synthesis -> use suede-customer-research.
• Need pricing, ad, or content implications -> use suede-pricing, suede-ads, or suede-content-strategy.
• From those skills, route current-source competitor research back to suede-competitor-profiling.