Over the past year at Affinity, we faced a growing challenge: a rising competitor began aggressively targeting both our new business and renewal opportunities.

We were hearing about them more often in the field, seeing them show up in our win-loss data, and noticing their footprint expand into our market. It wasn’t just background noise anymore – they were coming for us.

We knew we had to act fast. And we did.

This is the story of how we launched a focused, cross-functional competitive intelligence campaign that tripled our win rate against that vendor and drove over $1.2 million in revenue in just 90 days.

Seeing the threat clearly

As a leader in the CRM space, we're used to ankle-biters – smaller competitors who try to chip away at our market share.

But this one was different.

Their presence was persistent, strategic, and loud. Sales and customer success teams were encountering them more frequently, and our win-loss program confirmed what the field was feeling: they were running a targeted “takeout” campaign against us.

That clarity sparked urgency.

Launching our “swarm campaign”

We decided to swarm. Not panic – swarm.

We launched an internal “swarm campaign”, mobilizing a cross-functional team that met weekly and included stakeholders from Product, Customer Success, Marketing, Enablement, Solutions Engineering, and Support.

The mission was simple: arm every customer-facing team member with the intel and tools they needed to beat this competitor head-to-head.

Here’s what we rolled out:

We complemented this with SEO-optimized landing pages, digital ads, and a nurture campaign specifically targeting buyers comparing Affinity to this competitor.

Getting on the ground

One of the most valuable things we did was get out of the building – literally. We went on a customer roadshow to hear firsthand how buyers perceived us versus the competitor. These insights were gold. They helped us improve our differentiation and sharpen our storytelling at every level of the funnel.

Tracking, sharing, and celebrating progress

We didn’t just launch and hope. We built dashboards to track campaign effectiveness, surfacing weekly updates to our executive team. This visibility ensured alignment across the org and allowed us to adjust tactics in real time.

The results?

  • Win rate increased from 16% to 45% in opportunity count
  • ARR win rate jumped from 22% to 80%
  • In just 90 days, we won $1.2 million in revenue against this one competitor alone

But maybe the most rewarding part? Hearing our reps tell us they felt more confident, better equipped, and ready to go to battle in competitive deals.

The power of coordinated intelligence

Competitive intelligence isn’t just about collecting data – it’s about activating it. When insights are transformed into action and shared across the business, they drive real results.

This experience reminded me of something I say often: the best competitive programs aren’t reactive – they’re strategic. And when you focus, align, and enable your teams with purpose, you don’t just hold your ground – you win it back.

Let’s connect

If you’re working on building or scaling your own competitive or customer experience programs, I’d love to connect and share more. You can find me on LinkedIn – I’m always happy to chat.