Competitor Tracking System in HubSpot

Overview

HubSpot's company records can serve as a centralized competitor intelligence database. By creating company records for competitor locations and venues — and adding custom fields to track account status — teams can maintain a living map of the competitive landscape without relying on scattered spreadsheets, Google Drive folders, or memory.

The core principle: HubSpot as single source of truth. Any competitive intelligence gathered (news alerts, field reports, customer tips) should be logged directly into the relevant company record so it's searchable, filterable, and visible to the whole team.

The Pattern

1. Create Company Records for Venues and Locations

Rather than tracking only direct competitors as companies, create records for the venues and locations where ATMs (or equivalent placements) are deployed. Each venue becomes a company record.

This allows you to answer questions like:
- Who currently has the account at this venue?
- Which venues are served by a specific competitor?
- Which venues have no vendor at all (opportunity)?

2. Add a Custom "Account Status" Field

Create a dropdown property on the Company object called something like Account Status with values such as:

This field enables filtered views and segmentation across the entire venue database.

3. Add a "Competitor" Field (Conditional)

When Account Status is set to "Competitor Account," a second dropdown field — Competitor Name — captures which specific competitor holds the account. With only ~4 major competitors in the space, a simple dropdown is sufficient.

This enables views like: "Show me all venues where Competitor X has a placement."

4. Log Intelligence Directly to Company Records

Use the company record's notes and activity feed to capture competitive intelligence as it arrives:

• Google Alerts: Set up alerts for each competitor's name. When an alert fires, paste the relevant excerpt into the company or competitor record.
• Field reports: If a sales rep spots a competitor's machine at a venue, they update the Account Status field and log a note.
• Customer tips: If a prospect mentions a competitor, log it immediately.

This keeps all context in one place and eliminates the "I know we talked about this somewhere" problem.

Implementation Steps

1. Create custom properties on the Company object:
   - Account Status (dropdown)
   - Competitor Name (dropdown, conditionally relevant)

2. Create company records for known venues and competitor organizations.

3. Build a "Competitors" segment/view filtered by Account Status = Competitor Account, with Competitor Name as a column.

4. Set up Google Alerts for each major competitor and establish a habit of pasting relevant news into HubSpot records.

5. Optionally import a purchased list of ATM locations and bulk-tag records by account status.

Example Use Case

BluePoint learns that a competitor just signed the Milwaukee Brewers stadium. A team member opens (or creates) the company record for American Family Field, sets Account Status → "Competitor Account," sets Competitor Name → "[Competitor]," and pastes a note with the source. Now any team member can pull up that venue and immediately know the situation — no email thread required.

Source: ^[1]

Related Articles

• ^[2]
• ^[3]
• ^[4]
• ^[5]