Market Intelligence for Equipment Manufacturers: Find the Installed Base

An aftermarket leader needs answers to three questions: where are the units, which ones are due for attention, and who services them? A shipment report answers part of the first. Before you hand a dealer a growth target, you need a list of sites that dealer can work and a reason each site belongs on it.

Asset Search by PorchRocket builds that list around physical installations. We search aerial and satellite imagery against property records and public data using acceptance rules set with your equipment experts, then have people review every candidate before it reaches the dealer who will spend time qualifying the account. Each location comes with ownership information and dated evidence.

I would start with one equipment family and one offer: replacement components for cooling towers, for example, or a refurbishment method that now fits more installed units. Map that market, send the findings to the right dealer, and measure the gross profit attached to accounts opened. Expand once the first territory is producing qualified conversations.

Market intelligence starts with the installed asset

For an equipment manufacturer, the most actionable market record connects a physical installation to an owner, a serviceable product family and an assigned sales territory.

Decide what you are counting. A site differs from an equipment unit. Keep a campus with several installations under one buying account while retaining separate equipment rows, so a parts forecast can reflect all the machines without treating every machine as another owner who will approve a separate purchase.

Business statistics provide context. The Census Bureau’s establishment definition describes a physical business location, while an enterprise can contain several establishments. Neither definition counts installed equipment. Use industry and county totals to select areas worth investigating; use observed assets to decide which addresses deserve a call.

Give the research a sales purpose. An aftermarket manager needs installations that could consume a component. For a distributor deciding where to add a branch, the search must identify enough serviceable buying sites within reach of that branch to justify its coverage, with the supported product family defined before the territory total becomes a sales target. Write that requirement into the scope.

Our asset inventory from aerial imagery guide explains the broader search process. For manufacturers, the next layer is installed-base mapping: joining the discovered installations to the equipment and account records you already hold. Retain the unmatched sites. Those are the records your current book could not tell you to investigate.

I would measure territory penetration as served buying sites divided by accepted serviceable sites, with the date and boundary attached. Keep unit penetration separate. One owner with several machines should not distort both measures.

Seven equipment families worth mapping

Tanks, cooling towers, generators, rooftop units, port cranes, fabric structures and irrigation pivots each support a different manufacturer search and dealer follow-up.

Start with your offer. The table below is a starting scope sheet; replace the qualifying questions with the ones your application engineers use before approving a parts or retrofit quote.

Equipment family	Search target	Commercial decision	First dealer verification
Storage tanks	Visible individual tanks, grouped tanks and terminals	Parts, refurbishment or replacement territory	Stored product and equipment record
Cooling towers	Rooftop or ground-level installations	Component supply and retrofit assessments	Tower identity and service history
Standby generators	Visible generators and associated enclosures	Maintenance support, parts and upgrade accounts	Nameplate and operating record
Rooftop HVAC	Buildings with rooftop equipment	Replacement channels and component distribution	Model, capacity and controls
Port cranes	Visible cranes and cargo-handling sites	Parts coverage and modernization prospecting	Equipment identity and terminal operator
Fabric structures	Framed fabric buildings and air-supported domes	Re-cover, repair and replacement programs	Structure system and cover specification
Irrigation pivots	Visible center-pivot installations	Sprinkler packages, controls and dealer expansion	System configuration and farm operator

Tanks and cooling towers

For a tank equipment maker, separate a single installation from a terminal with several tanks. Decide whether the sales team sells through a fuel distributor, tank service firm or directly to the operator. Those channels need different contacts even when they point to the same parcel.

EPA’s bulk storage inspection guidance explains inspection programs for aboveground oil containers covered by the SPCC rule. Ask for the operator’s inspection and equipment records when qualifying a parts opportunity. Do not assign an inspection deadline from the aerial view.

Use the aboveground storage tank search for industrial tank programs and propane tank location data for propane equipment. For municipal water equipment, the water tower inventory is a separate territory book with different buyers.

Cooling-tower outreach should begin with the repair or efficiency work your channel can supply. EPA’s WaterSense cooling-tower guidance covers maintenance and retrofit options such as meters and controls. That supports several offers before a full replacement is considered. Give the dealer a cooling-tower location record, then request the tower identification and service history needed to choose an offer.

Generators and rooftop units

Scope a generator search around installations your service network can support. Specify whether a site with several enclosures counts as one buying account, and which visible arrangements deserve closer review. An enclosure alone should remain unresolved when the available evidence cannot settle the asset class.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s standby-generator maintenance guidance emphasizes following the manufacturer’s recommendations. Make the operating and maintenance record part of qualification. A standby-generator inventory provides the addresses for that conversation; the dealer supplies equipment identification and the maintenance proposal.

For rooftop equipment, decide whether the target is component demand or planned replacement. Those campaigns need different follow-up. PNNL’s Rooftop Unit Comparison Calculator evaluates equipment using lifetime energy costs and factors including local climate and operating requirements. A replacement assessment needs those inputs, alongside equipment details collected at the site.

Start a standard building campaign with properties containing rooftop HVAC. Request a custom search when your acceptance rules concern a particular visible arrangement, a specialty installation or a national dealer program.

Cranes, fabric structures and pivots

For port equipment, connect each crane record to its terminal and buying organization. As of November 2026, the OSHA marine-terminal crane rule, 29 CFR 1917.45(k) requires designated persons to visually inspect covered cranes and derricks on each day of use and thoroughly inspect functional components and accessible structural features monthly. Request the monthly inspection record and equipment identifier, then have the dealer qualify the parts or modernization opportunity with the terminal operator. Build the territory through port infrastructure data.

For fabric structures, define the structure family with your technical team before searching. Decide whether framed fabric buildings, air-supported sports domes or both fit the offer. Ask the owner for the cover specification and repair record before estimating a re-cover. Preserve uncertain classifications for review instead of sending a dealer every curved roof.

For irrigation, the July 2021 national USDA NRCS Conservation Practice Standard 442 covers sprinkler systems and renozzling to reduce pressure or flow, or increase distribution uniformity. Use a pivot location to request the current system configuration and operating needs. Use the local Field Office Technical Guide when specifying work; the national document supplies background for the equipment family. The farm infrastructure data guide extends the search to grain bins and poultry houses for adjacent equipment lines.

Other product divisions can use the same process. Electrical suppliers can scope substations and transformers, solar installations or battery-storage sites. Communications suppliers can map cell towers and rooftop antennas. Dock equipment belongs in a loading-dock property search; waste equipment belongs in a container and compactor territory. For clarifiers, digesters or another unusual installation, start with specialty asset search.

How do you find competitor installations without guessing the brand?

Search for the equipment class across the territory, then attach brand identity only when an equipment record or field verification supports it.

The first pass should reach beyond your registered units. Asset Search is recall-first: the search looks for installations outside directories and existing databases, including unlisted sites and newly built locations. Your experts define what counts and how ambiguous cases should be handled. Include cross-brand equipment families in that scope when your offer supports them.

Keep the commercial categories separate. Mark sites as existing customers, known installations without an active buying relationship, verified other-brand installations, or brand unresolved. A site missing from your CRM stays brand unresolved until an equipment record or field visit establishes its identity. Missing sales history tells the dealer where to investigate; it does not establish who supplied the equipment.

For a cross-brand parts program, build an eligibility sheet with your application engineer. State which equipment families the product supports and what evidence is required before quoting. Send the field technician the missing identification question. Preserve the supporting document or visit date when the answer arrives.

Ask who performs the work today. The response could point to an in-house team, a service contractor or another dealer relationship. Record that answer with its date and contact role. Route an opening offer through the channel you intend to use, whether that is component supply, technical support or an authorized inspection.

I would keep verified brand share and serviceable opportunity as different reports. Your aftermarket program may be able to supply equipment made by several manufacturers. The count that matters for the campaign is the set your offer fits after qualification.

Replacement timing starts with a service record

Prioritize equipment for replacement assessment using installation records, operating history and field findings; use dated imagery to locate installations and identify visible changes.

Keep four dates in the account record: the observation date, the verified installation date, the last service date and the owner’s next budget decision. Leave an unknown date blank. A unit first observed this quarter needs an installation-date question before it enters an age-based forecast.

Separate the near-term work from the capital program. A site might fit replacement planning, a component retrofit, routine parts supply or a later follow-up. Let the equipment assessment determine the category. The replacement-cycle demand forecasting guide explains how to aggregate those records without treating every old unit as an immediate sale.

For a manufacturer, an engineering change can be as valuable as a newly discovered installation. Suppose your application team approves a refurbishment method for a configuration previously excluded. Update that acceptance rule and re-answer the sites already searched. Asset Search can often perform that review without waiting for new imagery because the evidence needed for the revised question is already in the record.

Retain the previous decision and its rule version when you reassess a territory, so a dealer receiving a previously rejected site can see which product requirement changed and decide whether the old field notes already answer the new qualification question. Some sites will still need a visit. Keep that task attached.

For city or school equipment programs, Bid Control by PorchRocket supplies the public-work side, with relevant bids and their documents in one place. Route that opportunity to the dealer or service partner handling the public procurement while the asset record supports territory planning.

What should a reviewed site record contain?

An Asset Search record combines location and parcel, owner information, dated views and observed facts with a reviewed answer the dealer can act on.

Every candidate receives a disposition: fits, rejects with the reason, or unresolved with the one field check that settles the question. Every disposition comes back. A territory manager can see which sites were examined and why some were left out of the accepted set.

Specify the relationship between sites and assets in the delivery schema. Give one location a stable site ID, then attach separate observed assets where the scope calls for them. If a site spans parcels, preserve those parcel relationships rather than forcing the whole installation into the mailing address.

Record group	Field to request or add	How the dealer uses it
Location	Site ID, coordinates, address and parcel	Finds the installation and matches an existing account
Evidence	Dated views and observed attributes	Reviews the reason the site was selected
Disposition	Fits, rejects or unresolved, with reason	Decides whether to call, hold or resolve a field question
Ownership	Property owner and decision-maker contact where applicable	Establishes a route to the operating organization
Technical follow-up	One missing fact for an unresolved site	Gives the technician a defined verification task
Buyer-added sales fields	Dealer, account status and next action	Assigns responsibility after delivery
Refresh history	Observation dates and changed disposition	Explains why the record is back in the queue

Ask for CSV or Excel when dealers work from account lists. Choose GIS-ready files for territory mapping, or an import shaped for your CRM or dealer system. Test the import before accepting the pilot. Have a rep open the evidence from an imported account and trace it back to the reviewed site. Check that the import preserves dates and dispositions before distributing the territory book.

Separate the parcel owner from the equipment operator when they differ. The first ownership match gives you a contact route. Qualification establishes who approves the parts order or service agreement.

Dealer territory data that reps can work

Assign each accepted site to one accountable dealer or national-account owner, then rank the work by technical fit and the economics of serving it.

Start with the territory boundaries your channel already uses. Add named-account exceptions before distributing the file. If a national customer buys centrally but receives local service, preserve both relationships: the person responsible for the account and the branch responsible for the visit.

Give every dealer the same acceptance definitions. Define an accepted search result by the visible equipment class and agreed evidence. Record confirmed component compatibility separately after technical qualification, and record a buying opportunity only after the operator discusses the offer.

I would require a short return file after the first outreach period. Ask the dealer to mark contacted, equipment verified, existing relationship, evaluation scheduled or disqualified. Require a reason and next date. Keep unanswered calls in a separate category from technical failures, so the next territory review can distinguish a list that reached the wrong equipment from a list of suitable installations that the branch has not yet had time to work.

For a distributor, score the location against the branch that will fulfill the order. Check product availability and technical support. Use the route-density calculator when field service or regular deliveries are part of the offer. A distant account should carry the travel cost in its margin model.

Write the first-call objective in the handoff. For a cooling-tower program, that could be obtaining the tower identification and the name of the person who purchases replacement components. A dealer can finish that task and return evidence without promising a repair price on the first call.

Compare territories on accepted sites worked and gross profit opened, alongside their existing account base. The building-product market data guide covers the wider manufacturer and distributor planning problem. Use that view to decide which branch gets another campaign and which needs more follow-up capacity first.

Watch for new installations and changed eligibility

Use quarterly reviews for dealer territory books, faster monitoring for active installation campaigns, and a fresh eligibility review whenever your product requirements change.

Monitoring re-checks sites as new imagery becomes available and reports changes with before-and-after dates. New generator rows, rooftop equipment additions or removed installations can give a dealer a reason to revisit an account. Match the monitoring cadence to the action your team will take.

Sales decision	Starting cadence	Action after a reviewed change
Annual dealer planning	Annual refresh	Rebalance territory coverage and targets
Territory account development	Quarterly edition	Add accepted sites and update the working book
Active construction or expansion campaign	Monthly or weekly review	Request installation details and route to the assigned rep
Time-sensitive installation or event watch	Near-real-time alerts where daily satellite coverage exists	Triage a reviewed change for prompt follow-up
New repair method or changed product specification	Reassessment when the requirement changes	Revisit prior fits, rejects and unresolved sites

Choose the review date and imagery date as separate fields. A newly reviewed record may use an older observation. Likewise, the interval between two views establishes when a visible change appeared between observations; ask the operator for the installation and commissioning dates before starting an equipment-age clock.

Use new-installation change detection for the first signal and asset monitoring for the ongoing territory book. The satellite versus aerial imagery guide explains why cross-referencing views helps answer different questions.

Assign someone to receive the changes. Before ordering weekly monitoring, agree on who will review each change and send it to the dealer, with a response window that allows the branch to verify the equipment and contact the operator while the reason for outreach is still timely. Check the queue at the next sales meeting.

Preserve removals as well as additions. A removed installation changes the addressable book and gives the rep a specific follow-up question. Keep the historical record attached to the account so the next edition does not recreate it as an unexplained new prospect.

The value of one accepted find

Value an accepted installation by the manufacturer’s expected gross profit from the resulting account, multiplied by the probability that the site becomes a customer.

Use revenue your organization receives. When a manufacturer sells through a dealer, calculate the account value from the manufacturer’s sales after discounts and credits, with its own gross margin applied to that revenue rather than to the higher installed price the dealer charges the owner. Distributors should use their own margin too.

Say a cooling-equipment manufacturer is developing 250 accepted industrial sites for a parts and refurbishment program. Assume each account won produces $47,900 in annual manufacturer revenue at a 34% gross margin. Over a five-year window, budget four paid account-years to allow for delayed starts, gaps or lost business. Hold prices and margins flat and leave cash flows undiscounted.

The annual gross profit is $47,900 x 34% = $16,286. Expected five-year customer lifetime value, measured as gross profit, is $16,286 x 4 = $65,144 per account. Acquisition expense and corporate overhead come next.

A project-only offer needs different math. Assume a one-time refurbishment component order brings $37,900 in manufacturer revenue at a 29% gross margin. Its gross profit is $37,900 x 29% = $10,991. Count that order once; add later parts revenue only when your own account history supports it.

For the recurring account model, three wins from 250 accepted sites is a 1.2% conversion rate. Expected gross profit per accepted find is 1.2% x $65,144 = $781.73, rounded. That is the economic room available before search and selling costs. Use the customer lifetime value calculator to substitute your channel margin and paid account-years.

Keep the buying site as the denominator. Several visible assets under one purchasing decision do not automatically multiply the number of accounts you can win.

A five-year ROI and sales-capacity model

Three new accounts in the 250-site model yield $195,432 in expected five-year gross profit, with acquisition spending deducted to calculate the program’s return.

Lead-list ROI is gross profit from accounts won, minus search and outreach cost, divided by that cost. Customer acquisition cost, or CAC, is the same acquisition spending divided by accounts won. Use both: ROI measures the program, while CAC lets you compare how expensive each new account was to open.

Outcome	Accounts won from 250 sites	Site-to-account conversion	Expected five-year gross profit	Gross profit per accepted site
Low	1	0.4%	$65,144	$260.58
Base	3	1.2%	$195,432	$781.73
High	5	2.0%	$325,720	$1,302.88

Now hold the sales team’s capacity at 80 hours, with labor cost of $58 per hour. The campaign consumes $4,640 in sales labor under either approach. Compare two 250-site files in the same territory: one unreviewed and one with reviewed fit records. Assume the unreviewed file takes 12 minutes per site to qualify before outreach; reviewing a delivered fit record takes three minutes. Allow another 2.5 hours for each account the rep works through contact attempts and technical qualification. Treat that allowance as covering the entire selling cycle for these accounts, with further field labor or travel added separately to acquisition cost. Hold the offer and account value constant.

The unreviewed list consumes 250 x 12 / 60 = 50 hours before outreach, leaving 30 / 2.5 = 12 worked accounts. The reviewed list consumes 250 x 3 / 60 = 12.5 hours, leaving 67.5 / 2.5 = 27 worked accounts. The same 80 hours supports 2.25 times as many worked accounts.

At a held 10% win rate among worked accounts, expected wins move from 1.2 to 2.7. Across all 250 sites, those rates are 0.48% and 1.08%. Expected five-year gross profit moves from 1.2 x $65,144 = $78,172.80 to 2.7 x $65,144 = $175,888.80. Use those fractional expectations for the capacity comparison; the sensitivity table evaluates separate outcomes of one, three or five signed accounts. The gain comes from where the rep spends time, with the same win rate among accounts worked. At the same labor rate, a wasted 90-minute visit alone costs 1.5 x $58 = $87 before vehicle expense.

Call total acquisition spending C. Add the quoted search fee, the $4,640 sales labor and any further field qualification or travel expense to get C. For the three-account scenario, CAC is C / 3 and five-year ROI is ($195,432 - C) / C. For capacity planning at 2.7 expected wins, use C / 2.7 and ($175,888.80 - C) / C instead. Enter the quote and your field costs in the lead-list ROI calculator.

Set the purchasing rule before requesting a wider territory. Set an acquisition budget cap at 5% of the three-account scenario’s five-year gross profit. At that cap, gross profit is 20 times spend and net ROI is 19 times spend, or 1,900%. Spending below the cap increases that return. Holding acquisition spending at the same cap, the one-account outcome returns 566.67% net ROI and the five-account outcome returns 3,233.33%, rounded to two decimals. These are returns over five years. Approve the next territory when the quote plus the cost of working the file fits the budget and the dealer has capacity to follow up.

Asset Search pricing models for manufacturers

Choose per accepted result for a defined prospecting campaign, per investigation for a territory audit, and a subscription when ongoing changes drive dealer activity.

Asset Search pricing follows the buying decision. A parts team that wants a count of accepted installations can agree on acceptance rules and pay for the finds it accepts. Define the minimum evidence and treatment of known customers before the search starts.

An aftermarket leader reconciling a territory may prefer per completed investigation. Rejected sites explain what was searched and excluded. Unresolved records identify the remaining field work. Specify that all dispositions belong in the delivery even when the commercial model charges only for accepted results.

A monitoring subscription fits a continuing dealer program. Agree on the territory and refresh cadence. Define which changes deserve an alert. Success-based terms tied to an agreed outcome are another option where the outcome can be defined and measured clearly.

I would start a new equipment family with a small paid pilot credited toward the full order. Use it to test the definition and the dealer handoff. A broad footprint is easier to scope after both teams have reviewed the same accepted and rejected examples.

Compare the scope before the unit charge. Ask each quote to define the search boundary and evidence required for an accepted result, along with the delivery format and treatment of changed requirements, so the purchasing team can compare the same investigation across proposals that use different billing models.

Start with a pilot in one dealer territory

Select a pilot territory with known installations and unexplored addresses so your technical team can test recognition, exclusions and the value of newly discovered sites.

Choose one product family and an offer a dealer can explain. Write the inclusion rule in a sentence. For example: visible cooling-tower installations in the assigned counties, excluding the national accounts supplied separately, with unclear equipment classes held for review. Then list the evidence required to accept a site.

Provide positive examples and near misses. Include awkward cases your engineer would reject, such as a similar-looking asset outside the supported equipment family. Keep a separate set of known sites for checking the pilot’s search coverage. Otherwise, a pilot judged only on attractive returned examples says little about what was missed.

During review, calculate acceptance precision as confirmed fits divided by all returned fit records you checked. Check every returned fit, or identify the sample you verified and keep unchecked records out of both counts. Measure reference-site recovery as eligible held-back sites found divided by all eligible sites in the held-back set. Report the numerator and denominator for both measures. Those checks tell the technical team which acceptance rules need work before expanding the territory.

Test the delivery with a dealer. Have the rep locate the installation and match it to an existing account, then use the dated evidence to identify the next qualification question without asking your analyst to reconstruct why the site was selected in the first place. Check the unresolved records too. Each should name a field task.

Choose the next order from that review. Expand the territory when the rules hold and dealers have capacity. Refine the asset definition when rejection reasons repeat. Adjust contact routing when the right assets reach the wrong person. Keep each change in the next scope version.

How to build an aftermarket market map, step by step

Run an eight-step manufacturer search from offer definition through dealer feedback, with a paid pilot before expanding the territory.

1. Choose the offer in days 1 and 2. Name the parts family, refurbishment method or replacement assessment you want to sell. State who can approve the purchase and which dealer will perform qualification. Pick one offer for the first campaign.
2. Draw the territory in days 3 and 4. Supply county boundaries or your dealer territory file. Add existing customers and national-account exceptions as separate records. Agree on whether one accepted result means a site or an individual asset.
3. Request the Asset Search pilot in days 5 through 7. Use the manufacturer installed-base search form to describe the asset and area. Supply known examples, exclusions and your technical acceptance rule. Request all dispositions, dated evidence and the dealer import layout; agree on the scope and quote before the paid pilot starts.
4. Review the first edition with an application engineer. Check accepted examples and rejected near misses. Resolve disagreements in the definition before enlarging the search. Set the delivery and review dates in the scope so the dealer calendar follows the agreed pilot schedule.
5. Assign each buying site to a dealer. Import the records with stable site IDs. Attach account status and a named internal owner. Hold national-account exceptions for the responsible channel manager rather than sending duplicate assignments to several branches.
6. Work the qualification queue. Ask for the equipment identifier and the person who purchases the relevant parts or service. Use the unresolved field check when supplied. Record the verification evidence and next action with a date.
7. Review economics at day 30. Count sites worked, verified opportunities and accounts opened. Include the search fee and sales hours in acquisition cost. For a longer sales cycle, schedule the next review against the owner’s buying date instead of counting an evaluation as a sale.
8. Set the next edition. Expand where accepted sites receive follow-up and produce opportunities that fit your margin target. Request quarterly territory refreshes or faster installation monitoring where the decision warrants it. Reassess prior sites when your product’s eligibility changes.

Keep the returned dealer dispositions attached to the original search edition. At the next review, you should be able to distinguish an incorrect fit from a good fit that never received a call. Use that difference to change the search or the sales workload.

When Ground Control covers the manufacturer search

The fastest way to build a manufacturer’s standard property target list is Ground Control by PorchRocket, filtering commercial buildings by area, business type and size. Add filters for rooftop HVAC, visible storage tanks or loading docks to match the offer. Lists cost $10 to $20 per building, with orders starting at 10 buildings, and arrive within 48 hours after payment. Wrong matches receive credit within 30 days. Each record says why it matched; owner information and decision-maker research are add-ons. These are target accounts for your team to approach. Choose Asset Search when the assignment needs custom equipment acceptance rules.

For a distributor starting a branch campaign, Ground Control’s standard search can supply the initial building list. Choose visible storage-tank properties, rooftop HVAC buildings or manufacturer and distributor property data according to the offer.

Use Asset Search when the deliverable must distinguish specialty equipment, retain reviewed rejections, resolve a custom fit question or monitor a territory over time. Pick the product after writing the question the dealer needs answered.

Build your next territory with Asset Search

Asset Search gives manufacturers and distributors reviewed installations, dated evidence and delivery files organized around the equipment their channel can sell to or service.

Begin with the Asset Search service and describe one equipment family, the territory and the commercial decision. The two-minute form starts a scope and quote. Most buyers begin with a small paid pilot credited toward the full order, delivered in the format their team uses.

For a manufacturer program, agree on these six deliverables:

• Search rules written with your equipment experts, including examples and exclusions.
• Locations and parcels with owner information and decision-maker contact where applicable.
• Dated views and the observed facts behind each classification.
• All fits, rejects with reasons and unresolved sites with the field check that settles them.
• CSV, Excel, GIS-ready files or an import for your CRM or dealer system.
• A refresh plan that covers new installations and reassessment when your repair method or product specification changes.

Coverage runs from one county through the contiguous United States, with other regions available on request. There is no software to learn, imagery to buy or analyst team to hire. Your technical team defines what it can supply; the search puts the matching installations in front of the dealers responsible for growing the account book.

Tell us what to find, and give your next dealer campaign a territory of reviewed installations to work.