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Embargo & Coverage Tracker

Example prompt: "We send press releases to journalists under embargo and then chase coverage afterwards. Read our 'Embargoes' tab in Google Sheets — each row has a release title, the embargo lift date and time, the headline keyword phrases to search for, and the list of journalists we sent it to. From the embargo lift moment onwards, every two hours for the next 48 hours, search the web for fresh news articles matching the headline keywords. For each match, extract the outlet, the author byline, the URL, the publish time, and a short extract that quotes or paraphrases our release. Cross-reference the byline against the list of journalists we sent it to. Update a 'Coverage' tab in the same sheet with one row per piece of coverage. Once a day at 9am during the tracking window, post a digest to #pr in Slack — pieces that ran, journalists on the list who haven't run anything yet, and any unexpected outlets we didn't pitch. Stop tracking after the 48-hour window closes and write a final summary row to the original 'Embargoes' tab with totals."

The Problem

The two days after an embargo lifts are when PR teams want to know two things — who ran the story and who did not — and they want to know without sitting on Google News refreshing every twenty minutes. Manual tracking means tab fatigue, missed pieces in trade press, and a coverage report that gets written from memory two weeks later. The journalists we did not hear from are also the most important: they are tomorrow's follow-up call.

How GloriaMundo Solves It

We build a scheduled workflow that runs every two hours during a 48-hour tracking window after each embargo lifts. An integration step reads the active embargoes from the Google Sheet. A code step works out which embargoes are within their tracking window. A web search step searches the public web for articles matching each release's headline keywords from the embargo lift onwards. A url_extract step reads each candidate article to confirm it is real coverage and pulls outlet, byline, publish time, and a short extract. An LLM step cross-references each byline against the journalists who were sent the release. An integration step appends new rows to the 'Coverage' tab. A daily 9am branch posts a digest to Slack with what ran, who is still outstanding, and any surprises. When the 48-hour window closes, a final summary row is written back to the 'Embargoes' tab with totals. Glass Box preview shows every candidate article before anything is logged, so a publicist can sanity-check matches before they appear in the coverage report.

Example Workflow Steps

  1. Trigger (scheduled): Runs every two hours.
  2. Step 1 (integration): Read the 'Embargoes' tab of the PR Google Sheet.
  3. Step 2 (code): Filter to embargoes within their 48-hour tracking window.
  4. Step 3 (web_search): Search the public web for fresh articles matching each release's headline keywords since the embargo lift.
  5. Step 4 (url_extract): Read each candidate article and extract outlet, byline, publish time, and an excerpt.
  6. Step 5 (LLM): Match each byline against the journalist list and classify each piece as expected or unexpected coverage.
  7. Step 6 (integration): Append new rows to the 'Coverage' tab in the Google Sheet.
  8. Step 7 (conditional): If the current run is the 9am slot, branch to send a daily digest.
  9. Step 8 (integration): Post the digest to #pr in Slack — pieces that ran, journalists still outstanding, unexpected outlets.
  10. Step 9 (conditional): If the 48-hour window has just closed for an embargo, write a final summary row back to the 'Embargoes' tab.

Integrations Used

  • Google Sheets — read embargoes, log coverage, write a final summary row
  • Slack — daily digest to the PR channel during the tracking window

Who This Is For

In-house PR teams running embargoed announcements, agency publicists tracking client coverage, and comms leads at funded startups who want to know exactly which journalists honoured a pitch and which still need a follow-up. Particularly useful when more than one release is in flight at a time.

Time & Cost Saved

Manual coverage tracking on a single release runs to 60-90 minutes spread across the 48 hours after the embargo lifts, and the report is usually incomplete. This workflow produces a complete coverage log with structured rows and a daily Slack digest for the cost of 10-15 minutes of review per release. For a team running four or five releases a month, that is several hours back and a substantially better follow-up list.