Audience research
Part of How to run audience research for appointment setting agencies
How to research appointment setting agency competitors
How to research appointment setting agency competitors: frame the decision, scope the rival set, then check PECR, CAP Code and Companies House rules.
What to take away
- Most teams start with competitor websites and pricing pages, which shows what rivals say rather than what buyers believe. Start with the gap you need to close.
- Write down the decision the research must inform before you collect anything, then work back to the evidence that would change it.
- Check every claim against its source, including who is accountable for a competitor's marketing statements.
- Score findings on relevance, recency and independence so weak signals do not outrank strong ones.
- Keep test outreach inside the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003, enforced by the Information Commissioner's Office, and treat testimonial use as a CAP Code question for the Advertising Standards Authority.
Define the decision before you collect anything
Competitor research on appointment setting agencies usually fails because nobody agreed what it was for. A founder wants to know why a rival wins pitches. A sales lead wants to know why prospects compare them on price.
Is this research or browsing?
Can it change positioning, targeting or pricing?
Write one sentence: decision, owner, deadline
Stop. It is browsing, not research
Write one sentence naming the decision, the owner and the deadline. If the research cannot change a choice about positioning, targeting or pricing, it is browsing.
If you are commissioning the work rather than doing it yourself, that same sentence is your brief: the decision, the owner, the deadline, the six to ten competitors you want scoped, the sources you will accept and the scoring rubric below.
Set the scope of the competitor set
Choose six to ten competitors, split between direct appointment setting agencies, adjacent outsourced sales firms that also close deals and the in-house option. Buyers rarely compare only like with like, so start from the buyer rather than the vendor list, and confirm each name exists as described on Companies House before you scope it in.
Competitor set and raw wording
- Choose six to ten competitors
- Splitdirect rivals, adjacent outsourced sales, in-house
- Record what each competitor sells
- Record who each competitor sells to
- Record how each describes the outcome
- Keep the raw wording, never paraphrase
Record what each competitor sells, who it sells to and how it describes the outcome. Keep the raw wording; paraphrase hides positioning.
What counts as a competitor
An appointment setting agency books meetings for a client's sales team, usually on a retainer or a price per meeting. Adjacent categories belong in the same set: outsourced sales firms that run the whole cycle and close deals, lead generation and list-building agencies that supply data rather than conversations, and the in-house sales development team a buyer may weigh against all of them.
Which sources count as primary evidence
Primary evidence is anything you can verify at source: accounts filed at Companies House, published case studies, job adverts on Indeed and LinkedIn, webinar recordings, tender notices on Contracts Finder and the Find a Tender service, and contract terms. Secondary evidence is commentary about them, including review platforms such as G2, Clutch and Trustpilot, and press coverage.
How to log what you find
One row per claim, not one row per competitor. Log the claim, the source URL, the date you saw it and who benefits from it being true.
Check the corporate and regulatory facts
Before you cite a competitor as a benchmark, confirm it exists as described. A sales agency run as a limited company takes on the statutory duties set out in the Companies Act 2006, and its filing history at Companies House shows what its directors are accountable for, which is useful when a rival's public claims outrun its filings.
If your research includes testing competitor-style cold outreach, unsolicited electronic marketing to individuals falls under the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003, enforced by the Information Commissioner's Office. Consent, existing customer rules and the corporate subscriber exemption all shape what you can lawfully test, and UK GDPR covers any personal data you record along the way.
Where competitors lean on client testimonials, check the rules the same way they should. The CAP Code, which the Advertising Standards Authority enforces, explains what makes an endorsement misleading, a fair lens for judging rival messaging as well as your own.
Score what you find with a rubric
Rate each finding from 1 to 5 on three dimensions, then multiply. Anything below 20 should inform a hypothesis, not a decision.
| Dimension | 1 | 3 | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Relevance to the decision | Tangential | Partly relevant | Directly answers the question |
| Recency | Over two years old | Six to 24 months | Under six months |
| Independence | Competitor's own marketing | Trade press or review site | Filed document or buyer interview |
Score each source once and reuse it. Re-scoring the same PDF in three meetings turns a weak claim into a fact.
Turn findings into buyer language
Competitor research is only useful when it feeds your view of the buyer. Group findings by the problem the buyer is trying to solve, then map them onto the personas your sales team speaks to, as set out in the appointment setting agencies buyer personas breakdown.
For example, a team paying £400 a month for a competitor's retainer may care about meeting quality, while an enterprise buyer cares about data handling. Same market, different evidence.
Common questions
Can I use competitor testimonials as evidence?
You can record them as claims, but treat them as marketing until verified. Under the CAP Code, the ASA tests whether a testimonial supports the performance claim it sits next to.
How often should the rubric be refreshed?
Re-score findings when the underlying decision changes, not on a fixed calendar. Pricing pages and job adverts move quickly, so revisit those quarterly at most.
What should I not collect?
Avoid personal data about named employees and anything gathered from gated communities or private groups. You need patterns about the market, not dossiers on individuals.
