Competitive monitoring: track the movements of your local market
New entrants, closures, rating drops: updated_since turns the database into a monitoring feed.
The problem
A new competitor opens, an incumbent closes, a rival’s rating collapses: these signals are gold, but nobody has time to watch the maps manually every week.
The workflow
- Define the perimeter: your category + your departments in a saved filter.
- Every week (n8n Cron): GET /v1/places?updated_since=<last Monday> on that filter.
- Pay only the delta: only modified listings are delivered (1 credit each).
- Route the alerts: new competitor → Slack; closure → sales opportunity.
The result
Weekly monitoring of 2,200 businesses for ~15 credits/week (the market’s true change rate).