# Competitor analysis Human Guide

## What This Is For
Deliver a comprehensive competitive intelligence report across all major marketing dimensions. It gives the agent a clearer input/output frame for competitive research: what context to ask for, what decisions to make, and what usable artifact to return.

Use this as a human-readable version of the Competitor analysis agent skill. It is meant for marketers, operators, founders, and other non-coders who want the workflow without reading agent-specific implementation instructions.

## When To Use This
- Use this when you need a repeatable process for competitor analysis.
- Use this when the task needs judgment, examples, constraints, or a clear output format rather than a one-off prompt.
- Use this when you want to hand an AI assistant enough context to produce a usable marketing artifact.

## When Not To Use This
- Do not use this when you only need a quick factual answer.
- Do not use this when the work depends on private data you cannot share with the assistant.
- Do not use this as a replacement for legal, compliance, financial, or medical review.

## What You Need Before Starting
- The goal or business outcome you want.
- The audience, customer segment, or market context.
- Any source material the assistant should respect, such as notes, briefs, examples, URLs, or brand guidance.
- Constraints such as tone, length, channel, deadline, region, or approval requirements.
- A clear definition of what a good final answer should look like.

## Step-By-Step Workflow
1. State the job clearly: "Use the Competitor analysis guide to help me with..."
2. Add context: audience, goal, offer, channel, source material, and constraints.
3. Ask the assistant to identify missing inputs before producing the final output.
4. Have the assistant follow the skill-specific guidance below.
5. Review the result against the final checklist and ask for revisions where needed.

## Skill-Specific Guidance
- **Competitors**: 2-5 competitor names and/or URLs
- **Analysis scope**: Full analysis or specific dimensions (SEO, content, ads, social, pricing)
- **Key battleground keywords**: Terms where the brand competes head-to-head
- **Industry/category**: For contextual benchmarking
- **Content analysis**: Content types, publishing frequency, top-performing content, content gaps, topic authority
- **SEO analysis**: Domain authority, keyword overlap, ranking gaps, backlink comparison, technical health
- **Paid advertising**: Ad copy themes, landing page strategies, estimated spend, platform focus
- **Social media**: Platform presence, follower growth, engagement rates, content mix, posting cadence
- **AI visibility**: How competitors appear in AI answer engines versus the brand
- **Pricing and positioning**: Pricing models, value proposition, messaging frameworks, market positioning
- Synthesize findings into strategic opportunities and threats
- Generate actionable recommendations for competitive advantage

## Decision Points And Nuance
The original skill emphasizes: Purpose, Input Required, Process, Output, Agents Used, Supporting file: skills/context-engine/compliance-rules.md, Section 1: Geographic Privacy Laws, 1.1 EU/EEA — General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), 1.1b EU/EEA — AI Act Article 50 (Generative AI Disclosure), 1.1b.i — Article 50 draft implementing guidelines (May 2026).

Use these questions to steer the work:
- What is the intended audience or buyer?
- What source material must be preserved?
- What should the assistant optimize for: clarity, persuasion, accuracy, speed, creativity, or conversion?
- What examples represent the desired quality bar?
- What should the assistant avoid?

## Common Mistakes
- The user must provide (or will be prompted for):
- | **Penalty Range** | Up to EUR 20 million or 4% of global annual turnover, whichever is higher. Supervisory authorities may also issue warnings, bans on processing, and orders to erase data. |
- **Treat the carve-out as conditional, not a free pass.** "Human-reviewed" requires named accountability. Don't claim editorial responsibility unless a named editor is willing to be on the record.
- | **Consent Model** | Opt-out. No prior consent required to send commercial email. Recipients must be given a clear way to opt out, and opt-out requests must be honored within 10 business days. |
- | **Consent Model** | Opt-out for sale/sharing of personal information. Opt-in required for consumers under 16 (under 13 requires parental consent). "Sharing" includes cross-context behavioral advertising. |
- | **Consent Model** | Opt-in. Consent must be free, informed, and unambiguous for a specific purpose. Legitimate interest is available as an alternative basis but requires a Legitimate Interest Assessment (LIA). |
- | **Penalty Range** | Up to 2% of revenue in Brazil, capped at BRL 50 million (~USD 10 million) per violation. ANPD may also issue warnings, publicize violations, and block or delete data. |
- | **Email Rules** | Specified Electronic Mail Act: opt-in required for commercial email. Sender ID and unsubscribe required. APPI requires specifying the purpose of use at collection. |

## Copy-And-Paste Prompt
```text
Use the Competitor analysis human guide.

My goal:
[Describe the business outcome]

Audience:
[Describe who this is for]

Context and source material:
[Paste notes, examples, links, or existing copy]

Constraints:
[Tone, length, channel, timeline, must-include items, must-avoid items]

Before producing the final output, ask me for any missing information that would materially improve the result.
```

## Final Checklist
- [ ] The output matches the original goal.
- [ ] The audience and context are reflected in the answer.
- [ ] Important constraints and source material were preserved.
- [ ] The assistant made the relevant decisions explicit.
- [ ] The final artifact is ready to use, review, or hand to the next person.

## Source
This guide was generated from the indranilbanerjee/digital-marketing-pro skill entry for `competitor-analysis`.

## Source Skill Notes
These notes preserve the nuance from the original skill. Use them as supporting reference when the workflow above feels too generic.

# /digital-marketing-pro:competitor-analysis

## Purpose

Deliver a comprehensive competitive intelligence report across all major marketing dimensions. Identify competitor strengths, weaknesses, strategies, and gaps the brand can exploit.

## Input Required

The user must provide (or will be prompted for):

- **Competitors**: 2-5 competitor names and/or URLs
- **Analysis scope**: Full analysis or specific dimensions (SEO, content, ads, social, pricing)
- **Key battleground keywords**: Terms where the brand competes head-to-head
- **Industry/category**: For contextual benchmarking

## Process

1. **Load brand context**: Read `~/.claude-marketing/brands/_active-brand.json` for the active slug, then load `~/.claude-marketing/brands/{slug}/profile.json`. Apply brand voice, compliance rules for target markets (`skills/context-engine/compliance-rules.md`), and industry context. **Also check for guidelines** at `~/.claude-marketing/brands/{slug}/guidelines/_manifest.json` — if present, load restrictions and relevant category files. Check for custom templates at `~/.claude-marketing/brands/{slug}/templates/`. Check for agency SOPs at `~/.claude-marketing/sops/`. If no brand exists, ask: "Set up a brand first (/digital-marketing-pro:brand-setup)?" — or proceed with defaults.
2. **Content analysis**: Content types, publishing frequency, top-performing content, content gaps, topic authority
3. **SEO analysis**: Domain authority, keyword overlap, ranking gaps, backlink comparison, technical health
4. **Paid advertising**: Ad copy themes, landing page strategies, estimated spend, platform focus
5. **Social media**: Platform presence, follower growth, engagement rates, content mix, posting cadence
6. **AI visibility**: How competitors appear in AI answer engines versus the brand
7. **Pricing and positioning**: Pricing models, value proposition, messaging frameworks, market positioning
8. Synthesize findings into strategic opportunities and threats
9. Generate actionable recommendations for competitive advantage

## Output

A structured competitive analysis containing:

- Competitor overview matrix with key metrics per competitor
- Content strategy comparison with gap analysis
- SEO competitive landscape with keyword and link opportunities
- Paid media intelligence with creative and targeting insights
- Social media benchmarking with engagement analysis
- AI visibility comparison across platforms
- Pricing and positioning map
- SWOT summary per competitor
- Strategic recommendations prioritized by opportunity size

## Agents Used

- **competitive-intel** — All competitive dimensions, benchmarking, gap analysis, and strategic recommendations

---

## Supporting file: skills/context-engine/compliance-rules.md

# Compliance Rules Reference

This file is the canonical compliance ruleset for the Digital Marketing Pro plugin. All marketing modules MUST check outputs against these rules before delivery. Rules are structured for programmatic consumption by the context engine.

---

## Section 1: Geographic Privacy Laws

### 1.1 EU/EEA — General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| **Region** | European Union / European Economic Area (27 EU member states + Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway) |
| **Law** | General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) |
| **Year Enacted** | 2016 (enforced May 25, 2018) |
| **Consent Model** | Opt-in. Explicit, informed, freely given, specific, and unambiguous consent required before processing personal data. Consent must be as easy to withdraw as to give. Legitimate interest may apply in narrow B2B contexts but requires a documented balancing test. |
| **Email Rules** | Prior opt-in required for all marketing emails. Soft opt-in exception: existing customers may be emailed about similar products/services if given an easy opt-out at collection and in every message. Every email must include sender identity, physical address, and a functional unsubscribe mechanism honored within 30 days. |
| **Cookie/Tracking Rules** | Prior consent required for all non-essential cookies and trackers (ePrivacy Directive). Cookie banners must allow granular choice (accept/reject by category). Pre-ticked boxes are invalid. Analytics cookies require consent unless strictly necessary. Server-side tracking of personal data still requires a lawful basis. |
| **Penalty Range** | Up to EUR 20 million or 4% of global annual turnover, whichever is higher. Supervisory authorities may also issue warnings, bans on processing, and orders to erase data. |
| **Key Marketing Impact** | Double opt-in is industry standard. All lead forms need clear consent checkboxes (not bundled). Data Processing Agreements required with every martech vendor. Privacy policy must disclose all data recipients. Cross-border data transfers require adequacy decisions, SCCs, or BCRs. Right to erasure means suppression lists must be maintained. Profiling for ad targeting requires explicit consent or legitimate interest with opt-out. |

### 1.1b EU/EEA — AI Act Article 50 (Generative AI Disclosure)

| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| **Region** | European Union / European Economic Area |
| **Law** | Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 — Artificial Intelligence Act, Article 50 (Transparency obligations for providers and deployers of certain AI systems) |
| **Applicable** | **2 August 2026** (transparency obligations); general-purpose AI obligations applied 2 Aug 2025; high-risk system obligations 2 Aug 2027 |
| **Scope** | All generative-AI outputs distributed in EU markets — no minimum spend threshold, advertising not exempted. Both providers (AI developers) and deployers (advertisers, brands) bear obligations. |
| **Disclosure Requirements** | (a) AI-generated or AI-manipulated content **must be marked in a machine-readable format** using open, interoperable standards. **C2PA (Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity) is the emerging backbone.** Marking must be technically robust and survive routine processing. (b) Deepfakes (synthetic audio/image/video resembling real persons, objects, places, or events) must be **visibly disclosed**. (c) AI-generated text on matters of public interest must be disclosed unless human-reviewed and the brand assumes editorial responsibility. |
| **Carve-outs** | Genuine artistic, satirical, or fictional works are narrowly exempt — applies in limited cases and does not blanket-exempt marketing. |