How to Build a Google Sheets and Excel Audit Guide

Here’s how to build and scale a competitor audit template that starts in Google Sheets or Excel and grows into a fully delegated workflow with an AI agent.

Section 1: Manual methods (the starter playbook)

1. Design your core template

• In Google Sheets, create a new spreadsheet (see Google’s guide: https://support.google.com/docs/answer/6000292). In Excel, create a new workbook (Microsoft guide: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/create-a-new-workbook-5f76e0d2-2a2c-4b3f-b0a4-97a10b44a1c2).
• Add one row per competitor and columns like: Website URL, Product lines, Pricing model, Key features, Unique value prop, Target audience, Channels (SEO, paid, social, affiliates), Offers & promos, Reviews/ratings, Notes & opportunities.
• Freeze header rows and enable filters so you can sort and slice (Sheets filters: https://support.google.com/docs/answer/3540681; Excel tables & filters: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/create-and-format-tables-0b8a0b0a-8e5f-4a82-9b1a-3f5ae2c3f57e).

2. Run a lightweight web sweep

• List 3–10 direct competitors and 3–5 indirect ones.
• For each, open their homepage, pricing page, and product/feature pages.
• Manually capture: headline tagline, core promise, cheapest and most expensive plans, notable features, and any standout offer.
• Drop short, consistent notes into your template (e.g., “Usage-based pricing, self-serve onboarding, heavy on integrations”). Consistency now makes analysis easier later.

3. Add review and social proof signals

• Visit review sites your buyers trust (G2, Capterra, Yelp, Google Reviews, industry-specific directories).
• Capture average rating, review count, and 1–2 recurring pros/cons per competitor.
• Add links to the review pages so you can revisit quickly.
• This gives sales and marketing a quick sense of where competitors over- or under-deliver.

4. Turn raw data into a basic SWOT

• Add four extra columns: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.
• Summarise what you see for each competitor in a sentence or two.
• Later, you can filter by, say, “Strengths contains ‘enterprise’” to see which rivals own the top of the market.

Pros of manual methods: maximum control, deep familiarity with competitors, no tooling overhead. Cons: highly time-consuming, easy to let it go stale, hard to repeat at scale for dozens of competitors or weekly refreshes.

Section 2: No-code automation with common tools

5. Use import functions in Google Sheets

• If competitor pricing or feature tables are stable, try the IMPORTHTML function to pull them directly into Sheets (docs: https://support.google.com/docs/answer/3093339).
• Example: =IMPORTHTML("https://competitor.com/pricing","table",1) to pull the first table.
• Pair with ARRAYFORMULA and FILTER to clean and restructure the imported data into your main audit tab.
• Pros: low-code, auto-refreshes; cons: breaks if site structure changes, limited to clean HTML tables/lists.

6. Connect Excel to web and other data sources

• Use “Get & Transform Data” (Power Query) in Excel to connect to CSV exports, databases, or APIs your tools provide (guide: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/get-started-with-power-query-7104fbee-9e62-4cb9-a02e-5bfb1a6c536a).
• For example, pull monthly ad spend reports, SEO keyword rankings, or CRM win/loss exports into separate sheets, then map them to your competitor matrix.
• This gives you a richer view than website snapshots alone.

7. Set up scheduled exports from your marketing stack

• Many tools (Google Ads, Facebook Ads, SEO suites, CRMs) can email or push reports on a schedule.
• Point those at a shared drive folder, then:
  • In Sheets, use the “Import” function or Apps Script to load them into your audit file.
  • In Excel, use Power Query to automatically refresh from that folder.
• Pros: less manual downloading; cons: still requires some maintenance and scripting, data still fragmented across tabs.

Section 3: Scaling with an AI agent (Simular)

This is where you stop being the data entry clerk and become the strategist.

8. Let an AI agent do full-funnel web research

• With Simular Pro, you can configure an AI agent that behaves like a focused analyst at a computer.
• Give it a prompt like: “For this list of competitors in column A of my Google Sheet, open each website, navigate to pricing, features, and case studies, then populate columns B–K with pricing tiers, key features, ICP, primary CTA, and any notable promos.”
• The agent can:
  • Open the browser, search, click through pages.
  • Copy relevant text and paste it into Google Sheets or Excel.
  • Repeat this process on a schedule (e.g., weekly).
• Pros: massive time savings, real browsing (not just API calls), works even on sites without clean HTML tables; cons: you need an initial configuration and clear instructions, plus a quick human review loop.

9. Automate review and social monitoring

• Configure another Simular AI agent focused on review platforms and social proof.
• Workflow example:
  • Open your competitor list in Sheets/Excel.
  • For each competitor, search “[brand] reviews G2”, “[brand] reviews Capterra”, and “[brand] reviews Trustpilot”.
  • Extract overall rating, review count, and top 2 recurring pros/cons.
  • Write them into the appropriate columns of your template.
• Over time, this becomes a living NPS-of-the-market dashboard your sales team can reference in every pitch.

10. Build a repeatable, production-grade pipeline

• Because Simular focuses on production-grade reliability and transparent execution, you can:
  • Inspect every step the agent takes (no black box).
  • Adjust workflows when a competitor redesigns their site.
  • Trigger runs via webhook from your existing stack (e.g., refresh the audit before a quarterly planning meeting or big pitch).
• Pros: scales to dozens of competitors and thousands of actions with minimal human input; cons: needs an upfront design of your templates and prompts, plus occasional maintenance when the web changes.

Stitching it all together, you start with a clean Google Sheets or Excel template, layer in a bit of no-code automation, and then hand off the repetitive research and data entry to a Simular AI agent. Your job shifts from copy-pasting to asking sharper questions and acting faster than your competitors.