Why Google Alerts Don't Scale for Consultants
December 21, 2025
If you've ever tried to stay on top of client updates with Google Alerts, you already know the pattern:
It's useful at first. Then it quietly becomes noise.
This article is part of our full guide to client news for consultants.
The real issue isn't the alerts—it's the decisions
Google Alerts doesn't just deliver links. It delivers micro-decisions.
Every alert forces you to decide:
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Read now?
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Save for later?
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Ignore?
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Is this actually relevant?
With one client, that's manageable.
With multiple accounts, those decisions become the bottleneck.
What happens when you track multiple clients
At scale, three things break:
1) Volume explodes
One client might generate a few useful items a week.
Five to ten clients can generate dozens—or hundreds—of pings across markets, products, leadership changes, competitors, and regulation.
2) Relevance drops
Alerts aren't built for your exact account context.
You get:
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duplicates
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borderline matches
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press-release rewrites
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content that matters to someone, but not to you
3) There's no prioritization or synthesis
Alerts tell you something happened, not:
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why it matters
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what changed
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what's likely next
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what to mention in a meeting
So you end up either skimming headlines without context, or ignoring alerts until right before a meeting—when it's stressful.
Why Google News has the same scalability problem
Google News improves discovery, but it still requires:
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opening a screen
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scanning
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deciding what to read
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stitching context yourself
It's still a reading workflow, which fails when your available time is fragmented.
A scalable alternative: shift from reading time to listening time
The easiest way to stay consistently informed isn't "read more."
It's removing the activation energy.
Audio briefings let you absorb updates during time you already have:
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commuting
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walking into meetings
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flights and car rides
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short gaps between calls
If you want the full system, start here: Client News for Consultants.