Getting Started with Clearscout: Your First Competitor Brief in 5 Minutes

You just signed up for Clearscout. In the next 5 minutes, you'll have automated monitoring running on your top competitors — and your first intelligence brief within 24 hours.

Here's exactly what to do.

Step 1: Add Your First Competitor (1 minute)

From the Dashboard, click Add Competitor in the top right.

Fill in:
• Name: The competitor's company name (e.g., "Acme Corp")
• Domain: Their main website domain (e.g., acme.com)
• URLs to monitor: Add the pages that matter most

Which Pages to Monitor

Not all pages are created equal. Here's what to prioritize:

Page TypeWhy It MattersPriority Pricing pagePricing changes directly affect your win rate🔴 Critical Product/Features pageFeature launches change the competitive landscape🟠 High HomepageMessaging shifts reveal strategic direction🟡 Medium Blog indexContent strategy signals market positioning🟢 Low Careers/Jobs pageHiring signals reveal future product direction🟢 Low

Start with pricing + product pages. You can always add more later.

URL Tips

Use the exact URL, not the domain (e.g., https://acme.com/pricing not just acme.com)

Clearscout auto-detects page types from the URL

Skip pages behind login walls — we monitor public pages only

Step 2: Add 2 More Competitors (2 minutes)

On the free plan, you can monitor up to 3 competitors. Use them wisely:

1. Your #1 direct competitor — the one your sales team loses deals to most often
2. The up-and-coming threat — the fast-growing competitor everyone's talking about
3. The market leader — even if you don't compete directly, their moves set the market direction

Don't monitor companies that aren't actually in your competitive set. Monitoring Salesforce when you sell a niche DevOps tool wastes a slot.

Step 3: Wait for the First Scan (automatic)

Clearscout runs its first scan within 1 hour of adding a competitor. You don't need to do anything.

What happens during a scan:
1. We fetch each monitored URL
2. Extract the meaningful text content (stripping ads, nav, cookies, etc.)
3. Create a content fingerprint
4. On subsequent scans, we compare fingerprints to detect changes
5. When changes are found, we classify them and assess urgency

Step 4: Review Your Dashboard

After the first scan, your Dashboard shows:

Stat cards — competitors tracked, URLs monitored, recent changes, high-urgency alerts

Change feed — every detected change, sorted by recency

Competitor cards — at-a-glance view of each competitor's monitoring status

Understanding Change Types

TypeWhat It Means pricing_changeSomething on the pricing page changed — prices, tiers, features per plan feature_launchNew capability announced or added to product page messaging_shiftCore positioning or value prop language changed content_updateNew blog posts, resources, or marketing content hiring_signalNew job postings or hiring page changes general_updateOther meaningful page changes

Understanding Urgency Levels

🔴 High — Pricing changes, major feature launches. Act within 48 hours.

🟠 Medium — Feature updates, messaging shifts, significant content. Review this week.

🟢 Low — Content updates, minor changes, hiring signals. Review in your weekly brief.

Step 5: Set Up Alerts (1 minute)

Email alerts are delivered automatically:

Instant alerts for high-urgency changes (pricing, major launches)

Daily digest summarizing all changes from the past 24 hours

Weekly brief with AI-generated analysis of your competitive landscape

You'll receive these at the email you registered with. No additional setup needed.

What Happens Next

Hour 1: First scan completes. You'll see initial snapshots in the Dashboard.

Hour 2-24: The first comparison scan runs. If anything changed in the last hour, you'll see your first changes.

Day 7: Your first weekly brief arrives — a synthesized summary of everything that happened across all your competitors.

Most customers tell us the first "aha moment" happens within the first week, when Clearscout catches a change they would have missed manually.

Pro Tips

Tip 1: Check the Demo First

Before adding your own competitors, click Try the Demo on the login page. You'll see a fully populated dashboard with real competitor data from the CI market — pricing changes, feature launches, hiring signals. This shows you exactly what your dashboard will look like.

Tip 2: Monitor Comparison Pages

If your competitors have a "vs" or comparison page that mentions your product, monitor it. When they update their comparison, you want to know immediately.

Tip 3: Track Your Own Pages Too

Create a "competitor" entry for your own company and monitor your own key pages. This creates a change log you can cross-reference — "Did our pricing page update when we intended?" — and catches unauthorized or accidental changes.

Tip 4: Review Weekly, Not Daily

Unless you get a high-urgency alert, the weekly brief is the most efficient way to consume competitive intelligence. Don't check the dashboard daily — that's what the AI analysis is for.

Ready? Open the Dashboard and add your first competitor. Your first intelligence brief is less than 24 hours away.