apify-competitor-intelligence

Competitor Intelligence

Analyze competitors using Apify Actors to extract data from multiple platforms.

When to Use

• You need competitor benchmarks for content, reviews, pricing, ads, audience, or channel performance.
• The task involves selecting Apify Actors to compare competitors across maps, booking, social, or video platforms.
• You need structured competitor data plus synthesized takeaways for strategy or positioning.

Prerequisites

(No need to check it upfront)

• .env file with APIFY_TOKEN
• Node.js 20.6+ (for native --env-file support)
• mcpc CLI tool: npm install -g @apify/mcpc

Workflow

Copy this checklist and track progress:

Task Progress:
- [ ] Step 1: Identify competitor analysis type (select Actor)
- [ ] Step 2: Fetch Actor schema via mcpc
- [ ] Step 3: Ask user preferences (format, filename)
- [ ] Step 4: Run the analysis script
- [ ] Step 5: Summarize findings

Step 1: Identify Competitor Analysis Type

Select the appropriate Actor based on analysis needs:

User Need	Actor ID	Best For
Competitor business data	compass/crawler-google-places	Location analysis
Competitor contact discovery	poidata/google-maps-email-extractor	Email extraction
Feature benchmarking	compass/google-maps-extractor	Detailed business data
Competitor review analysis	compass/Google-Maps-Reviews-Scraper	Review comparison
Hotel competitor data	voyager/booking-scraper	Hotel benchmarking
Hotel review comparison	voyager/booking-reviews-scraper	Review analysis
Competitor ad strategies	apify/facebook-ads-scraper	Ad creative analysis
Competitor page metrics	apify/facebook-pages-scraper	Page performance
Competitor content analysis	apify/facebook-posts-scraper	Post strategies
Competitor reels performance	apify/facebook-reels-scraper	Reels analysis
Competitor audience analysis	apify/facebook-comments-scraper	Comment sentiment
Competitor event monitoring	apify/facebook-events-scraper	Event tracking
Competitor audience overlap	apify/facebook-followers-following-scraper	Follower analysis
Competitor review benchmarking	apify/facebook-reviews-scraper	Review comparison
Competitor ad monitoring	apify/facebook-search-scraper	Ad discovery
Competitor profile metrics	apify/instagram-profile-scraper	Profile analysis
Competitor content monitoring	apify/instagram-post-scraper	Post tracking
Competitor engagement analysis	apify/instagram-comment-scraper	Comment analysis
Competitor reel performance	apify/instagram-reel-scraper	Reel metrics
Competitor growth tracking	apify/instagram-followers-count-scraper	Follower tracking
Comprehensive competitor data	apify/instagram-scraper	Full analysis
API-based competitor analysis	apify/instagram-api-scraper	API access
Competitor video analysis	streamers/youtube-scraper	Video metrics
Competitor sentiment analysis	streamers/youtube-comments-scraper	Comment sentiment
Competitor channel metrics	streamers/youtube-channel-scraper	Channel analysis
TikTok competitor analysis	clockworks/tiktok-scraper	TikTok data
Competitor video strategies	clockworks/tiktok-video-scraper	Video analysis
Competitor TikTok profiles	clockworks/tiktok-profile-scraper	Profile data

Step 2: Fetch Actor Schema

Fetch the Actor's input schema and details dynamically using mcpc:

export $(grep APIFY_TOKEN .env | xargs) && mcpc --json mcp.apify.com --header "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" tools-call fetch-actor-details actor:="ACTOR_ID" | jq -r ".content"

Replace ACTOR_ID with the selected Actor (e.g., compass/crawler-google-places).

This returns:

• Actor description and README
• Required and optional input parameters
• Output fields (if available)

Step 3: Ask User Preferences

Before running, ask:

1. Output format:
   • Quick answer - Display top few results in chat (no file saved)
   • CSV - Full export with all fields
   • JSON - Full export in JSON format
2. Number of results: Based on character of use case

Step 4: Run the Script

Quick answer (display in chat, no file):

node --env-file=.env ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/reference/scripts/run_actor.js \
  --actor "ACTOR_ID" \
  --input 'JSON_INPUT'

CSV:

node --env-file=.env ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/reference/scripts/run_actor.js \
  --actor "ACTOR_ID" \
  --input 'JSON_INPUT' \
  --output YYYY-MM-DD_OUTPUT_FILE.csv \
  --format csv

JSON:

node --env-file=.env ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/reference/scripts/run_actor.js \
  --actor "ACTOR_ID" \
  --input 'JSON_INPUT' \
  --output YYYY-MM-DD_OUTPUT_FILE.json \
  --format json

Step 5: Summarize Findings

After completion, report:

• Number of competitors analyzed
• File location and name
• Key competitive insights
• Suggested next steps (deeper analysis, benchmarking)

Error Handling

APIFY_TOKEN not found - Ask user to create .env with APIFY_TOKEN=your_token mcpc not found - Ask user to install npm install -g @apify/mcpc Actor not found - Check Actor ID spelling Run FAILED - Ask user to check Apify console link in error output Timeout - Reduce input size or increase --timeout