For Advertising & Promotions Managers ·
What you'll accomplish
Your director asks on Monday morning whether a competitor has launched a sweepstakes or a retailer event and you have not read the trade press since Friday. After this setup, one saved Perplexity Space holds your standing instructions, and a single weekly question returns a list of competitors' consumer promotions with a link for every item. The list is a set of leads. You read the sources before any of it is repeated.
What you'll need
Perplexity's help center describes Spaces as places to organize threads and set custom instructions that apply to every thread in the Space. Menu names may change, so look for the Spaces area in the left-hand navigation.
What you should see: A new Space with a field for a description and a field for custom instructions. Troubleshooting: If you cannot create a Space, your plan may not include it. Check Perplexity's help center and pricing page.
This Space is for one job only: finding consumer promotions run by the competitor brands I name.
Consumer promotions means offers, coupons, rebates, sweepstakes, contests, giveaways, loyalty offers and retailer promotional events.
Ignore everything else, including product news, earnings and category trends.
For every item, give: the brand, what the promotion is in one sentence, the retailer or channel, the dates if stated, and a link to the source.
Cite every source. Do not report anything without a source.
If a source is older than the period I asked about, say so and give its date.
If only one source reports something, say it is a single report.
If a report is a rumor or unconfirmed, label it "unconfirmed."
Do not estimate results, spend or the success of a promotion.
Do not state any legal conclusion about a competitor's promotion.
If you find nothing for a brand, write "Nothing found" for that brand.
Open a new thread in the Space and ask the same question each week.
Example prompt to copy-paste:
Competitors: Brand P, Brand Q, Brand R. Retailers: Retailer A and Retailer B.
Period: the last 7 days.
List consumer promotions announced or reported in that period in trade press and retailer news.
Group by brand. Cite every source and give its publication date.
Replace the brand names with the real ones you track.
What you should see: A grouped list with links, labelled "unconfirmed" or "single report" where that applies. Troubleshooting: If the answer includes news that is not about promotions, say "Remove everything that is not a consumer promotion" and consider adding a line to the instructions.
Before any item leaves your desk, open the linked article and read it. Check three things: does the article say what the summary says, is the date inside your period, and is it a report or an announcement from the brand itself?
Put confirmed items in a short note for your team with the link. Mark anything unconfirmed as "reported, not confirmed" or leave it out. Never treat an unconfirmed report as fact.