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Process Runbook / SOP
Competitor Monitoring
[YourCompany.com] · Marketing Department · Prepared by FullSpec · [Today's Date]
This runbook describes how the Competitor Monitoring automation works in practice, what your team needs to do each week, how to handle anything that goes wrong, and who to call when you need help. It is written for the Marketing Manager and anyone else responsible for keeping the process running. FullSpec builds, monitors, and maintains the automation end to end. Your team's only regular task is a brief Monday review of the weekly digest.
01Process overview
Every Monday at 7 a.m. the automation fires automatically. It pulls structured competitor data from SEMrush and Ahrefs via their APIs, collects news and mention items from Google Alerts RSS feeds, and hands everything to an AI agent that writes a plain-English weekly intelligence digest. The digest is posted to Slack and logged to the shared Google Sheets tracker and HubSpot. If a significant change is flagged, the Marketing Manager receives a highlighted alert and spends roughly ten minutes deciding whether an immediate response is needed. No manual data collection, no copying and pasting, and no missed weeks.
Process name
Competitor Monitoring
Trigger
Weekly schedule, every Monday at 7 a.m. (configured in the automation platform)
Final output
Formatted weekly intelligence digest posted to Slack, appended to Google Sheets tracker, and logged as a note in HubSpot
Agents running
Data Collection Agent, Intelligence Summariser Agent
Tools involved
SEMrush, Ahrefs, Google Alerts (RSS), Google Sheets, Slack, HubSpot
Weekly volume
Approximately 5 competitors checked across 5+ sources each, every Monday
Human checkpoint
Marketing Manager reviews the digest and responds to any flagged significant change (approx. 10-30 min/week)
Process owner
Marketing Manager
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02Step-by-step: what happens and who acts
What you actually need to do: Your only regular action in this process is to open the Slack digest each Monday morning, read the highlights section, and decide whether any flagged competitor change needs an immediate response. Everything else runs automatically without you touching it.
Step
What happens
Who acts
Type
1
The automation platform fires on the weekly Monday 7 a.m. schedule. No manual action starts the process. The trigger kicks off the full data collection run automatically.
Automation platform
Automated
2
The Data Collection Agent calls the SEMrush API and retrieves keyword ranking changes, estimated traffic shifts, and new paid ad keywords for every competitor on the tracked list stored in Google Sheets.
Data Collection Agent
Automated
3
The Data Collection Agent calls the Ahrefs API and retrieves new backlinks and recently published content for each tracked competitor, flagging any domain rating changes that exceed the configured threshold.
Data Collection Agent
Automated
4
The Data Collection Agent reads the RSS feeds for all configured Google Alerts, collects news mentions and press items published since the last run, and filters out noise using keyword rules. All results are normalised into a consistent JSON structure.
Data Collection Agent
Automated
5
The Intelligence Summariser Agent receives the structured dataset, identifies the most significant changes across all competitors, and drafts a formatted weekly digest with a highlights section and one section per competitor.
Intelligence Summariser Agent
Automated
6
The automation checks whether the AI agent has flagged any significant change (for example, a pricing shift above the threshold, a major backlink gain, or a press mention of a product launch). If yes, the digest highlights section is marked and the Marketing Manager is alerted. If no significant change is found, the process continues to step 7.
Automation platform
Automated
7
If a significant change was flagged, the Marketing Manager opens the highlighted digest in Slack, reads the flagged items, and decides on any immediate action such as a pricing review, a content response, or a note to the sales team. This step takes approximately 10 minutes and is the only point requiring a human decision.
Marketing Manager
Human
8
The automation appends a new dated row to the shared Google Sheets tracker for each competitor, recording key metrics and any flagged changes for historical trending and future comparison.
Intelligence Summariser Agent
Automated
9
The formatted weekly digest is posted to the designated Slack channel. The highlights appear in the main message for quick scanning, and per-competitor detail is available in the thread.
Intelligence Summariser Agent
Automated
10
A note summarising the week's competitive landscape is logged against the relevant marketing campaign or company record in HubSpot, keeping the CRM context current for sales and marketing alignment.
Intelligence Summariser Agent
Automated
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03Handling exceptions
The automation is built to handle common failure modes without stopping. The table below covers the most realistic exception scenarios and tells you exactly what the system does and what, if anything, you need to do in response.
Situation
What the system does
What you do
A competitor is on the tracked list in Google Sheets but has no data returned from SEMrush or Ahrefs (for example, a very new domain with no ranking history)
The Data Collection Agent logs a 'no data available' entry for that competitor in the structured dataset and continues the run. The digest notes that no data was returned for that competitor this week.
No action required this week. If the competitor remains blank for three or more consecutive weeks, check that the domain URL in the Google Sheets tracker is spelled correctly. Contact FullSpec at support@gofullspec.com if the issue persists.
A competitor already exists in the Google Sheets tracker and a duplicate row is about to be written (same competitor, same week)
The automation checks for an existing row with the same competitor name and week date before writing. If a match is found, it updates the existing row instead of creating a duplicate.
No action required. If you ever notice duplicate rows in the tracker, report them to FullSpec support so the deduplication logic can be reviewed.
The SEMrush or Ahrefs API returns an error (rate limit reached, authentication failure, or service outage)
The automation retries the failed API call up to three times with a five-minute delay between attempts. If all retries fail, it skips that data source for this run, logs the error, and sends a brief system alert to the designated Slack channel noting which source was unavailable.
You will see a system alert in Slack. Check whether your SEMrush or Ahrefs subscription is active and whether the API key is still valid. Forward the alert to support@gofullspec.com if the issue is not resolved by the following Monday.
The AI summariser produces a digest but flags multiple items as significant when they are actually low-importance (false positives due to market noise)
The system posts the digest as normal with all flagged items highlighted. It does not filter or suppress flagged items automatically.
Review the highlighted items in the Monday Slack digest. If the flagging threshold feels too sensitive, contact FullSpec at support@gofullspec.com to adjust the AI prompt or significance threshold. No rebuild is required, only a configuration update.
The Marketing Manager does not review the digest or respond to a flagged significant change within the working day
The automation does not chase or escalate automatically after the initial flag. The digest and all data remain in Slack and Google Sheets. The following Monday's run will proceed as normal.
Review missed digests at your convenience in the Slack channel history or the Google Sheets tracker. If you want the system to send a follow-up reminder after a set period, contact FullSpec to add an escalation step.
Slack is unavailable at the time the digest is ready to post (planned maintenance or an outage)
The automation retries the Slack post up to three times over fifteen minutes. If Slack remains unavailable, the digest is held in the automation platform's outbox and delivered as soon as the connection is restored. The Google Sheets and HubSpot steps complete regardless of Slack availability.
No action required. Your digest will arrive in Slack once the service is restored. If Slack is unavailable for more than a day, check your Slack workspace status page and notify FullSpec if the digest has not arrived by Tuesday morning.
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04Who to contact and when
Fill in once your team is confirmed. The rows marked with brackets are placeholders for your internal contacts. The FullSpec rows are fixed and ready to use now.
Role
Name
How to reach them
Process owner (Marketing Manager)
[Your name]
[Your email or Slack handle]
Day-to-day operator (Marketing Coordinator)
[Team member name]
[Their email or Slack handle]
Operations / IT contact (for tool access issues)
[Your operations contact]
[Their email or Slack handle]
SEMrush account owner (for API key issues)
[Your SEMrush account holder]
[Their email]
Ahrefs account owner (for API key issues)
[Your Ahrefs account holder]
[Their email]
FullSpec builder (build questions, configuration changes, escalations)
FullSpec team
support@gofullspec.com
FullSpec support (errors, outages, digest not arriving, anything urgent)
FullSpec support
support@gofullspec.com
05Ongoing maintenance
The automation runs without ongoing intervention, but a small number of routine checks keep it accurate and useful over time. The table below sets out what to do, when, and who is responsible.
Any time a new competitor is identified
Add the competitor's name, website domain, and any relevant social handles or review page URLs to the tracked competitor list in the Google Sheets tracker. The automation picks up the new entry on the following Monday's run automatically.
Marketing Manager
Any time the digest format needs to change (new section, different highlight logic, adjusted tone)
Contact FullSpec at support@gofullspec.com with a description of the required change. FullSpec will update the AI prompt and, if needed, the Slack post format. No rebuild is required for prompt-level changes.
Marketing Manager + FullSpec
Monthly, on the first Monday of each month
Spot-check the Google Sheets tracker to confirm that rows are being written correctly for every tracked competitor and that dates are incrementing as expected. Compare one competitor's digest section against the raw SEMrush data for that week to verify accuracy.
Marketing Manager or Marketing Coordinator
Monthly, on the first Monday of each month
Check the automation platform's error log (FullSpec will share access during onboarding) for any recurring failures or skipped steps. If the same error appears more than twice, raise it with FullSpec support.
Marketing Manager or Operations Lead
Whenever a team member changes role, leaves, or joins
Update the contact table in section 04 of this runbook. If the person held API credentials or Slack admin access, rotate the relevant keys and update the stored credentials with FullSpec. Notify support@gofullspec.com of any access changes.
Marketing Manager + Operations Lead
Quarterly (every three months)
Review the full competitor list to confirm it still reflects the market. Remove rivals that are no longer relevant, add new entrants, and check that your SEMrush and Ahrefs subscription tiers still cover the number of API calls the automation requires for the current competitor volume.
Marketing Manager
The single most common maintenance issue for this process is the competitor list in Google Sheets falling out of date. If a competitor is not on the list, the automation will never collect data for them, and no alert will be raised. A missed competitor is invisible. Build a five-minute quarterly list review into your team calendar to keep the automation's scope current.
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