Competitive Intelligence

You know the firms you lose pitches to. Do you know how they compare online?

Updated September 2026 · by DeshTEK Digital

The gap is rarely overall quality. It is usually three or four specific things.

Short answer: Compare on four dimensions rather than a single score: site health and speed, search coverage for the market and asset-type terms you both chase, AI visibility across Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini, and authority in the form of CRE-relevant backlinks and published broker expertise. The pattern is consistent — competitors who win pitches usually have submarket pages, brokers who publish, and mentions AI engines can cite.

What to compare

Site fundamentals — speed on mobile, security, listing freshness.
Search coverage — do they have pages for the submarkets and asset types you both work?
AI visibility — asked about your category, which firms do the engines name?
Authority — CRE-relevant referring domains, and whether individual brokers have a published footprint.

Turning a comparison into a plan

Rank the gaps by how quickly they close. Broker profiles and submarket pages are weeks of work you control. Backlinks and AI mentions follow from publishing and being covered, which takes longer. Start with the gap that is both large and within your control.

In DeshTEK Digital

Quick Compare puts your site side by side with up to three competitors (1 credit)
CRE Competitor Tracker runs a fuller scorecard filtered by market, asset type and service line (2 credits)
Competitors can be named by you or discovered automatically

Run it on your own site

The free plan includes 5 credits a month — no credit card, no time limit.

Start free →

Frequently asked questions

How do I do a competitor analysis for a commercial real estate firm?

Pick the three firms you actually lose pitches to, then compare site fundamentals, search coverage for your shared market and asset-type terms, AI visibility across the major engines, and authority signals such as CRE-relevant backlinks and published broker expertise.

How do I find out which competitors AI recommends instead of my firm?

Ask the engines your category question — "who are the best [asset type] brokers in [market]?" — and record which firms are named. Running the same prompt over time shows whether that list changes.

What if my competitors are much larger national firms?

Compete on specificity rather than scale. A national firm rarely has a page dedicated to your submarket and asset class, and that is exactly the page an engine quotes for a narrow question.