“If you're not advertising, you're not my competitor.” Parker J. Smith · The Koerner Office - Business Ideas and Deep Dives with Chris Koerner
September 2026
Smith runs a water-filtration business and was explaining how he actually does competitor analysis: he counts who is running ads, not who sells the same service. His claim is that the referral-based legacy companies in his market draw from a separate pool of customers that never overlaps with his. It is the reasoning behind watching cost per acquisition and review count rather than the number of firms in town.
Transcript
Yeah. If my if my cost per acquisition went way up, then maybe I would start looking and say, hey, are these guys running my same ads or what's going on? Yeah. But in the meantime, I'm just honestly trying to get ahead on reputation because that's the biggest thing is everyone in my area, they're all pretty similar newness. Maybe they were started in 25, but nobody that's selling at $2,700 price point has been around for five years. So it's completely up for grabs in terms of who becomes the gold standard at our price point. And that's what our sole focus has been. How quickly can we get to 500 reviews?
I almost think this could do even better in a market where everyone has hardwater, right? Because like I had a name for it. I can't remember what it is, but like if I wanted to start an amazing five-star barbecue restaurant, I would go to Austin where all the best barbecue restaurants are. If I wanted to start a dessert shop, I would go to Pro, Utah, where all the dessert shops are because that's the culture. That's understood. And people want to try the new thing and they're already educated, right? Back to education. Like I feel like the ads could do even better there, but it's encouraging to me that you in you're in what might be a harder market and crushing it, right? So this is this really could be done in any market.
I 100% agree. I think the only thing that you have to be aware of is labor availability and it's the number of people that are advertising, right? When I do a competitor analysis, I don't look at how many companies sell the service that I sell. I look at how many people are actively, legitimately advertising because those are my only competitors. If you're not advertising, you're not my competitor. Yeah. You will get your market share and mine will be totally different. Nobody that was going to buy from me is going to buy from you instead. And nobody that was going to buy from you is going to buy from me instead. You know, the referral-based legacy companies, they will have their market share forever and they'll slowly bleed it out, you know, from the pinprick, but they'll be fine. I'm looking at the new school companies that are doing something similar to what I am at a similar price point with a similar customer experience. Yeah.
What are you seeing in the industry of how people are acquiring customers that are not called Facebook ads? Like, what are some other good acquisition channels for this industry?
I think Google ads will be phenomenal. I think it's really just all about not fighting for the densest keywords because that is where your big billion-dollar companies, that's where they pump all their money. You know, if you look up water filtration Raleigh, like it's going to be Coligan, Connecticut, Leaf, Eco Water. It's going to be all the big boys. Right. But discount water softener, right? I think there are backdoor keywords that are still 100% up for make hardwater
soft.
More from The Koerner Office - Business Ideas and Deep Dives with Chris Koerner
