Competitor intelligence is one of those PM responsibilities that never gets a dedicated slot on the roadmap—yet it shows up everywhere: pricing conversations, positioning updates, feature launches, and executive readouts.
The hard part isn’t collecting data. It’s avoiding data overload while still catching the handful of changes that actually matter.
This post is a practical approach to building a competitor intelligence stack that’s:
- low maintenance
- biased toward signal
- easy to summarize for others
(And yes: we’ll cover how to do it manually first.)
Want the “web change monitoring” layer automated? See the landing page: https://briefpanel.com/landing-pages/product-managers/competitor-intelligence
The recurring failure mode: too much noise
Most tools will happily send you:
- every minor copy tweak
- layout changes
- footer updates
- “we updated our terms” banners
…but you don’t need more alerts. You need fewer, higher-quality updates.
A good competitor intel workflow separates collecting from alerting.
Step 1: Decide what “competitor intelligence” means for your product
Start by choosing 1–2 “intel outcomes” you actually care about. Examples:
- Pricing & packaging: plan names, price points, limits, add-ons, CTA wording
- Positioning: headline/value prop shifts, ICP changes, proof points, comparison pages
- Product surface: feature pages, docs/release notes, integrations, “what’s new” pages
If you don’t choose an outcome, you’ll end up tracking everything and reading nothing.
A quick template
Write this in a doc (one per competitor):
- Competitor name:
- Primary buyer / ICP (today):
- Primary differentiation (today):
- Risks to watch (top 3):
- e.g. “undercutting us on price”
- e.g. “moving upmarket into our ICP”
- e.g. “shipping a key integration we’re missing”
Step 2: Build a “small stack” (no one tool does everything)
The most useful advice from the Reddit thread was: use a stack.
Here’s a clean split that keeps things sane:
A) Web page changes (pricing/positioning/docs)
Track:
- pricing page
- 1–2 key landing pages
- “features” or “platform” pages
- changelog / release notes
- docs (if docs are a competitive lever)
This category is where a page monitoring + summarization tool shines.
B) Mentions and conversations (Reddit, X, LinkedIn)
Use mention tracking (keyword alerts, subreddit monitoring, etc.) and treat it as a separate stream.
C) Ads (Meta, TikTok)
Use official libraries (Meta Ad Library, TikTok Creative Center) and check on a schedule.
D) YouTube / creators
Use YouTube search / subscriptions / alerts and summarize only when a video crosses a threshold (views, channel size, relevance).
Step 3: Add filtering + scoring before you alert humans
One of the highest-signal comments in the thread boiled down to:
“The real win is upstream filtering and scoring so you don’t drown in raw mentions.”
You can implement this without ML. Use a simple scorecard.
A lightweight scorecard
When something changes, score it:
- Reach (1–5): how visible is this change?
- Recency (1–5): is it new this week / today?
- Intent / impact (1–5): does it affect positioning, conversion, pricing, roadmap?
Then:
- 0–6: log it (don’t alert)
- 7–10: include in weekly brief
- 11–15: alert immediately
This is how you avoid Slack spam.
Step 4: Decide the output format (weekly brief beats dashboards)
A surprising amount of competitor intel fails because it becomes a dashboard you never open.
A weekly brief works because:
- it’s easy to forward
- it’s predictable
- it forces prioritization
Weekly brief template
- Top 3 competitor moves (what changed + why it matters)
- Pricing changes (bullets)
- Positioning changes (bullets)
- Product changes (bullets)
- Open questions / follow-ups
Step 5: How to do the web-monitoring part manually
If you’re doing this manually today, here’s the least painful way:
- List 5–10 URLs per competitor (start small).
- Check pricing pages more often than everything else.
- When you notice a change, write:
- what changed
- what you think it implies
- who needs to know
This works, but it doesn’t scale.
Step 6: Automate the web-change layer with BriefPanel
BriefPanel is designed for the “web page changes” layer:
- monitor any public URL
- set a per-page cadence (every 30 minutes, hour, 6 hours, or 24 hours)
- adjust change-detection sensitivity
- get AI-generated summaries of important additions/removals
- use a custom AI prompt to focus the analysis
- receive email/push notifications and daily/weekly digests
- choose your preferred language for summaries
A practical setup for competitor intel
- Pricing page: hourly (or every 6 hours)
- Homepage / key landing page: daily
- Changelog / release notes: daily
- Docs: weekly (unless docs are your battleground)
Prompt examples (copy/paste)
Use a custom prompt per page to reduce noise:
-
Pricing page prompt:
- “Focus on changes in price, plan names, plan limits, seat minimums, add-ons, and CTA text. Ignore layout and navigation.”
-
Landing page prompt:
- “Focus on changes in headline, ICP, value proposition, proof points, and comparison claims. Ignore testimonials and footer links.”
Wrap-up
A strong competitor intelligence workflow is:
- a small stack
- with upstream scoring
- that outputs a weekly brief
If you want to automate the “what changed on their site?” part (pricing + positioning), the landing page is here:
https://briefpanel.com/landing-pages/competitor-intelligence