Competitor campaign tracking in retail is one of the most important ways for FMCG suppliers to maintain their competitive edge. When retail chains rotate their promotional products weekly and pricing is constantly shifting, a supplier without systematic monitoring can easily be left in the dark about what competitors are doing in stores right now.
In this article, we walk through the sources from which competitor campaign data is available, how field sales and market intelligence complement each other, and how collected data translates into concrete decisions.
What information is available on competitors’ campaigns?
More information about competitors’ campaigns is available than is often assumed, once data collection is organized systematically. Retail chains’ and stores’ own online shops reveal what is happening in stores. Daily collected e-commerce data provides a reliable picture of the campaign situation at store level.
In practice, the data points to monitor include campaign prices, campaign mechanics (e.g., bundle deals), campaign duration, and campaign store coverage. When this data is collected daily across all retail chains, clear patterns begin to emerge: when a competitor runs promotions, how frequently, and at what price level.
Field sales as a source of competitor intelligence
The field sales team is an undervalued but valuable source of competitor intelligence. During store visits, sales representatives see firsthand how competitors’ products are displayed, whether there are promotional labels on shelves, and how space is divided among different suppliers. This observational data is real-time and contextual.
The challenge, however, is the systematic collection and recording of this information. Without a clear structure, field observations often remain in the memory of individual sales representatives and never reach decision-makers. Modern field sales solutions enable observations to be recorded directly in the store, even without an internet connection, making the data available immediately after synchronization.
Field data and data-driven campaign monitoring complement each other best when they are combined into a single view. A field observation alone captures the situation in one store on a single day, but when combined with broader market data, it helps distinguish a local anomaly from a chain-level trend.
POS and delivery data as builders of competitive intelligence
POS data — that is, point-of-sale data — and delivery data together form a strong foundation for building a competitive intelligence picture. POS data reveals what is actually being sold in stores, while delivery data shows what has been delivered to the store. Combining the two enables, for example, the identification of out-of-shelf situations and the assessment of stock levels at store level.
It is important to keep a clear distinction between the data a supplier has on its own products and what can be observed about competitors’ products. There is no direct access to competitors’ own delivery data, and competitors’ sales data is not automatically available. E-commerce data complements POS and delivery data by making competitors’ activities visible — activities that cannot be directly seen from one’s own product sales figures. It can be used to track, for example, competitors’ prices and price changes, promotions, availability, new product launches, and the development of store coverage. When this data is examined alongside one’s own products’ POS and delivery data, it is also possible to assess the impact of a competitor’s actions on one’s own sales. If, for example, a competitor launches a campaign or lowers its price, POS data can be used to monitor whether the change is reflected in one’s own product sales. The key advantages of e-commerce data in competitor monitoring are speed and cost-effectiveness.
In campaign monitoring, daily tracking covering all retail chains simultaneously is particularly valuable. For example, comparing campaign data from Kesko, S-ryhmä, Tokmanni, and Lidl side by side provides a comprehensive picture of how competitors distribute their promotional investments across different channels. This helps identify where one’s own supplier is strong and where there is room for improvement.
Practical challenges in campaign monitoring
Monitoring competitors’ campaigns sounds straightforward, but in practice it runs into several challenges. The first is data fragmentation: campaign information is available from many different sources, but combining them into a unified view requires both technical expertise and resources.
The second challenge is data timeliness. Campaigns can start and end with little notice, and weekly or monthly monitoring is too slow for effective response. If a competitor significantly lowers its price for just a two-week campaign, a monthly report will only reflect that after the fact.
The third challenge is data quality. Manually collected or irregularly updated data easily contains errors and gaps that distort analysis. For this reason, automated, daily data collection is clearly a more reliable alternative to manual monitoring in campaign tracking.
From competitor intelligence to action — how data drives decisions
Information about competitors’ campaigns is only valuable when it leads to concrete action. The first step is identifying what questions the monitoring should answer: Is a competitor running promotions more aggressively than us in certain chains? Are there blind spots where a competitor is consistently more active? Is a competitor reacting to our own campaigns?
Once these questions are clear, data begins to guide decisions. For example, if monitoring reveals that a competitor regularly runs promotions in K-Supermarket at a certain time of year, this information can be factored into the planning of one’s own campaign calendar. Rapid detection of price changes provides the opportunity to react before market share shifts.
FieldForce’s Price & Listing Monitor is built precisely for this need: it collects daily campaign and pricing data from nine Finnish retail chains, including Kesko, S-ryhmä, Tokmanni, Puuilo, Sokos, and Lidl for campaigns. This means suppliers always have an up-to-date picture of both their own and competitors’ situations in stores, without manual data collection.
At its best, competitor monitoring is not reactive but proactive. When trends are tracked continuously and systematically, a supplier can identify a competitor’s campaign patterns in advance and plan its own actions accordingly. This transforms market intelligence into a strategic competitive advantage — not merely a reporting exercise.