When the agency's competitive set didn't match reality

The Situation

A DTC pet food brand had retained a digital media agency for two years. The agency delivered quarterly competitive reviews benchmarking the brand’s advertising spend against a set of competitors across key channels. These reports informed budget allocation decisions and were presented to the board.

In the most recent review, the agency reported the brand was outspending its two closest competitors on Google Ads by a significant margin. The agency recommended shifting 40% of Google budget to Meta, where — according to their data — the identified competitors were gaining ground.

The brand’s VP of Marketing had grown uncomfortable with the lack of independent verification. The competitive set the agency cited — two mid-market pet food brands — didn’t match the VP’s understanding of the landscape from trade shows, retail shelf placement, and customer feedback.

The Approach

The VP engaged Roblec to independently map the DTC pet food category by estimated advertising spend across Google, Meta, TikTok, and programmatic. The goal was to identify which brands constituted the true competitive set based on spend levels and channel concentration patterns.

The approach was deliberately independent of the agency’s methodology. Rather than evaluating the agency’s data sources or challenging their numbers directly, Roblec provided a separate category-level view. The VP could then compare the two pictures side by side.

The Finding

The findings diverged from the agency’s analysis in two material ways. First, the two brands the agency had identified as “closest competitors” ranked seventh and ninth in the category by total digital advertising spend. They were reasonable comparisons by revenue size, but they were not the brands spending most aggressively in the same channels.

Second, Roblec’s category mapping identified three larger brands the agency had omitted entirely. All three were outspending the brand on Google by a factor of 2-3x. The brand was not leading on Google as the agency had reported — it was significantly behind its actual competitive set.

The agency’s competitive framing had selected comparisons that made the brand look dominant on Google and weak on Meta. The recommended budget shift would have moved spend away from the channel where the brand was under-investing relative to true competitors, and toward Meta — where the agency happened to specialize.

The Outcome

The VP presented both analyses to the board: the agency’s quarterly review alongside Roblec’s independent category mapping. The contrast required no editorial commentary. The board questioned the basis for the agency’s competitive set and requested a full audit of previous recommendations.

The planned 40% reduction in Google spend was halted. The brand increased Google investment by 15% to close the gap with its actual competitive set — the opposite of the agency’s recommendation.

The agency relationship was restructured. Competitive analysis was moved to an independent source, and the agency’s scope was narrowed to execution. The VP’s reflection: “We were making strategic decisions based on a competitive picture that was drawn to support the recommendation, not to reflect the market.”