cotera

NewsAPI Competitor News Tracker

Monitor competitor mentions in the news, log everything to Google Sheets, and get Slack alerts when rivals make headlines.

Competitive intelligenceNews monitoringMarket awarenessSlack alerts

The Challenge

Keeping tabs on what your competitors are doing in the press is tedious. You end up setting Google Alerts that flood your inbox, or you manually search each competitor name every Monday. This prompt automates the whole workflow — searching news sources, categorizing what matters, logging it to a shared sheet, and pinging your team in Slack.

What This Prompt Does

Search News by Competitor

Pull recent articles mentioning each competitor from NewsAPI

Categorize Coverage

Tag each article: Product, Funding, Partnership, Executive Move, etc.

Log to Google Sheets

Add structured rows with date, source, category, and summary

Alert via Slack

Post a digest with key takeaways to your team channel

The Prompt

The Prompt

Task

Use @NewsAPI/Search News ArticlesName it "NewsAPI/Search News Articles" and call it with @NewsAPI/Search News Articles to search for recent news mentioning a list of competitors. For each competitor, pull articles from the last 7 days, categorize the coverage type, log everything to a Google Sheet via @Google Sheets/Add RowName it "Google Sheets/Add Row" and call it with @Google Sheets/Add Row, and send a summary to Slack via @Slack/Send MessageName it "Slack/Send Message" and call it with @Slack/Send Message.

Example: Track news mentions for Salesforce, HubSpot, and Outreach. Log to my "Competitor Intel" spreadsheet and alert #marketing in Slack.

Input

The user will provide:

  1. A list of competitor names or domains
  2. Google Sheet ID or name for logging
  3. Slack channel for alerts
  4. Optional: specific topics to filter (e.g., "funding", "product launch", "partnership")

Example: "Track Gong, Chorus, and Clari in the news this week. Log to my competitor tracker sheet and post to #competitive-intel."

Context

Search Strategy

For each competitor:

  1. Search NewsAPI with the competitor name, limited to the last 7 days
  2. If results are sparse, broaden with Google Search for additional coverage
  3. Categorize each article: Product News, Funding, Partnership, Executive Move, Earnings, Opinion/Analysis, or Other
  4. Score relevance as High, Medium, or Low based on whether the competitor is the primary subject

What Counts as Noteworthy

Focus on articles that signal strategic moves:

  • New product launches or feature announcements
  • Funding rounds or IPO activity
  • Key hires or executive departures
  • Partnerships or integrations
  • Customer wins or case studies
  • Analyst coverage or market positioning

Skip generic listicles and tangential mentions where the competitor is not the focus.

Logging Format

Each row in Google Sheets should include:

  • Date found
  • Competitor name
  • Article title
  • Source publication
  • Category (Product, Funding, Partnership, etc.)
  • Relevance (High/Medium/Low)
  • Article URL
  • One-line summary

Output

Slack Message Format:

Competitor News Roundup — [Date Range]

[Count] articles found across [N] competitors

[Competitor 1] — [X] mentions

  • [Category]: [Article title] ([Source]) — [1-line summary]
  • [Category]: [Article title] ([Source]) — [1-line summary]

[Competitor 2] — [X] mentions

  • [Category]: [Article title] ([Source]) — [1-line summary]

Key Takeaways:

  1. [Most significant finding and why it matters]
  2. [Second most significant finding]

[Count] rows added to Google Sheets tracker.

Google Sheets: One row per article with all fields populated.

Example Usage

Try asking:

  • →"Track news mentions for Gong, Chorus, and Clari this week"
  • →"Monitor Stripe, Adyen, and Square in the press — log to my competitor sheet"
  • →"What have our competitors been in the news for in the last 7 days?"