Competitor Email Analysis Workflow: n8n + Claude to Google Sheets

Turn Competitor Newsletters into Actionable Responses—Automatically (n8n + Claude → Google Sheets)

This n8n workflow automatically pulls recent competitor newsletter emails from Gmail every day, analyzes each message with Anthropic Claude, and appends structured competitor insights and response ideas into Google Sheets—then marks emails as read and applies an “Analyzed” label so they aren’t processed twice.

What this workflow does

• Runs on a daily schedule (every day at 9:00 AM) to load your Gmail query, maximum email body length, and your brand context.
• Tracks what’s already been analyzed by reading your Google Sheets log and collecting previously stored Message IDs.
• Fetches matching Gmail emails, skips any Message IDs already in the log, and cleans/truncates the email body for analysis.
• Analyzes each email with Claude to generate structured competitor analysis and a concrete response idea grounded in your brand context.
• Parses JSON output from Claude and formats one row per successfully analyzed email.
• Appends results to Google Sheets, then marks processed Gmail messages as read and applies an “Analyzed” label.

Use cases

• SaaS operators monitoring competitor messaging trends and positioning changes from newsletters.
• Automation engineers building a repeatable pipeline for competitor email analysis and knowledge capture.
• Teams who want a daily sheet of competitor insights plus ready-to-use response angles.

Technical details

• Schedule Trigger: runs daily at 9:00 AM.
• Gmail: fetches competitor newsletter emails, then marks them as read and applies an Analyzed label.
• Google Sheets: logs Message IDs and appends Claude-derived analysis fields.
• Anthropic Claude: generates structured competitor analysis and response ideas (via JSON parsing).
• n8n nodes used include: set, code, gmail, google sheets, and supporting notes via sticky note.

Setup tip: create Gmail labels (e.g., “Competitors” and “Analyzed”), set a filter for competitor newsletters, and configure credentials for Gmail, Google Sheets, and Claude in n8n.