---
title: "Recipe: Competitor monitoring digest"
description: "TL;DR: On a schedule, this playbook researches your competitors across the web and news, summarizes notable launches, pricing changes, and positioning shifts with an LLM, and delivers a digest to Slack or email. Trigger is a schedule (e.g. Monday mornings); output is a formatted competitor digest."
canonical_url: "https://docs.ballet.dev/articles/recipe-competitor-monitoring-digest-ZQv9Oa3xEf"
md_url: "https://docs.ballet.dev/articles/recipe-competitor-monitoring-digest-ZQv9Oa3xEf.md"
---
# Recipe: Competitor monitoring digest

**TL;DR:** On a schedule, this playbook researches your competitors across the web and news, summarizes notable launches, pricing changes, and positioning shifts with an LLM, and delivers a digest to Slack or email. Trigger is a schedule (e.g. Monday mornings); output is a formatted competitor digest.

## Who this is for

Marketing and product marketing teams who track competitors manually and want a recurring, structured digest instead.

## What you'll need

* **Connectors:** Web research (built-in), Slack (or email for delivery).
* **Secrets:** Slack token (stored in Secrets — never hardcoded). Email delivery uses the built-in sender.
* **Trigger:** Schedule — for example, weekly on Monday at 8am.

## How to build it with Ask Ballet

1. Open the Console on Home.
2. Paste the prompt below and set your competitor list and delivery channel.
3. Review the proposed plan, confirm, and let Ballet build it.
4. Connect Slack when prompted (email works out of the box).

```text
Build a playbook that runs every Monday at 8am. For each competitor in this list
(Acme, Globex, Initech), search the web and recent news for product launches, pricing
changes, and messaging or positioning updates from the last 7 days. Summarize the
findings per competitor into a concise digest with links to sources, highlighting
anything that changed. Post the digest to the Slack channel #competitive-intel and
also email it to marketing@ourcompany.com.
```

## What the playbook does

1. **Schedule trigger** — fires on the cadence you set (e.g. weekly).
2. **Code step (research)** — runs a parallel web/news search per competitor and collects the top results.
3. **Code step (summarize)** — an agent summarizes changes per competitor with source links.
4. **Code/HTTP step (deliver)** — posts the digest to Slack and/or sends it by email.

## Variations and tips

* Start with a manual trigger and one competitor to validate the summary quality before scheduling.
* Add a "so what" line per competitor by asking the agent for implications for your positioning.
* Narrow the time window (`qdr:w`) to keep the digest focused on what's new.
* Store the Slack token in Secrets — never hardcode it in a step.

## Related articles

* [Generate a content brief](/articles/recipe-generate-a-content-brief-oatxIlpMYt)
* [Scheduled reports and readouts](/articles/recipe-scheduled-reports-and-readouts-rqFtYUEyJN)
* [What triggers can start a playbook?](/articles/what-triggers-can-start-a-playbook-manual-schedule-webhook-P4mdwPZDGg)
* [How do I build a playbook with the Console?](/articles/how-do-i-build-a-playbook-with-the-console-ask-ballet-oHptRP9mI4)