Competitive Signal Triage (Delivery)

Competitive Signal Triage (Delivery)

1. 01

   Set a fixed weekly intake window and freeze the source list for the cycle

   Pull from a named set of sources (paid ad trackers, traffic panels, procurement award indexes, public spending datasets) and log each source with a pull date. A frozen list keeps week-over-week comparisons honest when a client asks why a competitor's spend estimate moved.

2. 02

   Score each signal on two axes: decision impact and evidence strength

   A 40% jump in a competitor's display placements from a tracker like Adbeat is high impact but medium evidence; a government contract award indexed in Sell to State is low volume but near-certain evidence. Rank by the product, not by recency.

3. 03

   Discard signals that cannot change a client decision this quarter

   Most weekly noise fails this test. Keep the triage log to five items or fewer per client so the account lead can actually act on it before the next status call.

4. 04

   Cross-check any single-source claim against a second data type before it reaches the client

   Traffic estimates from Similarweb and ad-spend estimates from a separate tracker rarely agree to the decimal. Where they diverge, report the range and the direction of travel rather than a false-precision number.

5. 05

   Write the interpretation layer: what changed, why it matters to this account, what we do about it

   This is the billable part. Access to competitive data is commoditized across agencies; the defensible output is a two-paragraph read on what the shift means for the client's positioning and which deliverable it touches.

6. 06

   Route the brief to the account lead with a recommended action and an owner

   Every signal that survives triage gets one of three labels: monitor, adjust current campaign, or escalate to strategy. Unlabeled signals become retainer padding and clients notice.

7. 07

   Log the signal and its outcome for the next quarterly review

   Track whether the predicted move actually happened. A running hit rate on competitive calls is the strongest evidence an agency can bring to a renewal conversation.