If you’ve ever tried to stay on top of what your competitors are doing, you know it’s a pain. The news trickles in from everywhere: press releases, obscure trade blogs, LinkedIn updates, and the occasional surprise acquisition. If you’re tired of manually piecing it all together, this guide is for you. We’ll walk through how to automate competitor news tracking and reporting using Owler—warts and all—so you can get the info you need without spending your life glued to Google Alerts.
Why automate competitor news tracking?
Let’s be honest: manually tracking competitor news is a slog. You’ll waste hours combing through headlines, and you’ll still miss things. Automation means:
- You get notified when something actually happens.
- You don’t have to remember to check 12 different sites every morning.
- You can share updates with your team without spamming everyone’s inbox.
- You can spend your time on strategy, not news scavenger hunts.
If you care about keeping tabs on competitors, automating this stuff is non-negotiable.
Step 1: Set up your Owler account and company watchlist
First things first, you’ll need an Owler account. The free version is surprisingly decent, but bigger teams or those wanting integrations might want to look at Pro or Enterprise. (Spoiler: most small teams can get by with free or Pro.)
- Sign up or log in: Go to Owler and create an account if you don’t have one. Use your work email—it’s just easier for company matching.
- Search for your competitors: In the search bar, type in the names of your competitors. Add each to your Watchlist by clicking the “Follow” or “+” button. Don’t overthink it—start with your top 5–10 real competitors. (You can always add more later.)
- Set up your own company: Make sure you’re following your own company too. You want to see what Owler is picking up about you—it’s eye-opening and sometimes hilarious.
Pro tip: Ignore the temptation to add every possible competitor. More isn’t always better. Focus on the companies that actually matter to your market and sales conversations.
Step 2: Configure news alerts (without drowning in email)
Owler’s main draw is its “Daily Snapshot” email—the summary of major news for companies you follow. But it’s easy for your inbox to become a graveyard of unread updates. Here’s how to set up alerts that are useful, not overwhelming:
- Go to Settings > Notifications: In your profile menu, find Notification Settings.
- Pick your frequency: You can choose daily, weekly, or “only important news.” Start with daily if you’re in a fast-moving industry; weekly if things move slower.
- Choose your companies: You can set different frequencies or mute some companies entirely. Seriously, don’t feel bad about muting—some companies are just noise.
- Test for a week: If you’re getting more than one email a day (or if you’re ignoring them), dial it back.
What works
- Daily Snapshots: Good for quick scanning. You’ll catch major funding rounds, leadership changes, and product launches.
- Custom Alerts: You can set up alerts for certain keywords (on Pro plans). Handy if you only care about M&A, layoffs, or product launches.
What doesn't
- Event Overload: Owler tries to be helpful but sometimes flags tiny updates (like a new VP of HR at an irrelevant competitor). Tweak your settings ruthlessly.
- Only Email: If you hate email, you’re out of luck. As of now, Owler doesn’t offer native Slack or Teams integrations for news (unless you pay for Enterprise and even then, it’s limited).
Step 3: Organize your competitor data for reporting
Great, you’re now getting news. But how do you turn this into a report your team will actually use? Here’s the honest answer: Owler’s built-in reporting is basic. You’ll need to do a little work.
Exporting and organizing the news
- Manual Export: Every Snapshot email contains links to news articles. You can copy/paste the relevant ones into a spreadsheet or doc. Not glamorous, but it works.
- Owler Pro Download: If you’re on Pro, you can export company lists and some data as CSV. This doesn’t include news articles, but it’s useful for tracking other changes (like funding rounds or headcount).
- Build your own digest: Once a week, pull the top 2–3 stories for each competitor. Make a Google Doc, Notion page, or simple email to share with your team.
Don’t waste time making fancy charts unless your boss really loves them. Most people just want to know: “Did anything big happen this week?”
What about automation?
If you want true automation (news feeds into a dashboard or Slack channel), you’ll need to get creative:
- Zapier: Owler doesn’t have a Zapier integration as of 2024. You’ll need to use email parsing tools (like Mailparser or Zapier Email Parser) to grab news from Snapshot emails and send it somewhere else.
- RSS Feeds: Owler doesn’t offer RSS feeds. If this changes, RSS + Slack is the dream.
- Enterprise Integrations: At the highest tier, you can sometimes get direct integrations, but it’s expensive and overkill for most teams.
So, for now, the “automation” is semi-automated. You’ll save hours, but there’s still a bit of human touch required.
Step 4: Share competitor news with your team
Automation isn’t just about getting news—it’s about making sure the right people see it. Here’s how to avoid spamming everyone or, worse, nobody reading what you send.
Keep it simple
- Weekly digest: Summarize the 2–3 most important stories for each competitor. Add a note if it’s actually relevant (e.g., “Acme Corp launched a new product that competes with ours.”)
- Use your team’s channel: Email works, but Slack or Teams is better for quick discussion. Paste headlines with links; don’t just forward the entire Owler email.
- Assign an owner: If possible, have one person (maybe you) curate and share the news. Rotating roles often leads to dropped balls.
What not to do
- Don’t forward everything: You’ll train people to ignore your updates if you send too much.
- Don’t try to automate “insight”: Owler gives you the raw news, but only you know what matters. Add a line or two of commentary. That’s where the value is.
Step 5: Iterate and improve
You don’t need a perfect system out of the gate. The best competitor tracking setups are the ones people actually use. Here’s how to keep it sustainable:
- Review your alerts every month: Are you missing important stories? Getting too much fluff? Adjust your watchlist and notification settings accordingly.
- Ask for feedback: See if your team finds the updates useful. If not, tweak the format or frequency.
- Don’t chase every shiny tool: Most teams don’t need to pay for another SaaS just for competitor news. Owler + a little manual curation is enough.
A few honest pros and cons of using Owler
The good
- Coverage: Owler scrapes a ton of sources—better than Google Alerts for business news.
- Simplicity: Easy to get started. No steep learning curve.
- Price: The free tier is solid for most, Pro is reasonable.
The not-so-good
- No deep automation: If you want news piped into dashboards or Slack automatically, you’ll need workarounds.
- Signal-to-noise: Sometimes it catches irrelevant updates. You’ll need to fine-tune.
- Reporting: Built-in reports are basic. You’ll probably end up making your own.
Keep it simple, stay consistent
Automating competitor news tracking with Owler isn’t magic, but it’s a huge upgrade from doing everything by hand. Start small, focus on the competitors that matter, and share only what’s actually useful. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good enough. As your team grows, you can always tweak the process. For now? Set it up, let Owler do the hunting, and get back to work that matters.