Awario vs Google Alerts:
Detailed Comparison & Review

Awario and Google Alerts are both good for brand monitoring and competitive analysis. After you take a look at this comparison, you'll be able to choose the right tool for you. For a long time Google Alerts was the king of web monitoring software. But time has passed and now there are tons of alternatives to Google Alerts. Unlike these new shiny apps, it won't help you with online reputation management, influencer marketing, social selling, and listening to social media.
Now let's take a closer look at the mention feed of both apps:
Awario
Google Alerts
As you can see, the interfaces are completely different. The feed of Google Alerts is basically a list of mentions it found. Awario has the feed itself, the preview section, the author card, and the sidebar, which enables you to quickly switch between your alerts, reports, and the Dashboard.
Getting email notifications is a handy way to be notified about new mentions. They let you stay on top of your campaigns, avoiding opening the app each time. You can choose between daily or weekly email notifications in the settings of each platform. Besides the number of newly found mentions, you get a preview of some of them. Awario sends emails to the address which is used to sign up, while Google Alerts has a handy switcher between accounts. So if you want to get the same notification to multiple email addresses, just log into them and create the same alert.
Let's take a look at the key features.
Awario
 Google Alerts
In-app interactions
(likes, replies, shares, etc.)
Historical data Unlimited for all plans
Real-time mention search
Language filter
Country filter
Email notifications
And here are the most common parameters users consider while picking a monitoring tool.
Features
Awario outperforms Google Alerts in terms of its possibilities for mention monitoring. Awario's top differentiators are statistics and influencers reports, sentiment analysis, and, the most important, monitoring social media. Although Google Alerts doesn't have a wholesome Boolean search mode, you can still create complex queries by searching for exact match ("general motors"), you can get mentions from a specific website (site:gm.com), exclude terms ("general motors" -saab), use the OR operator, etc.
Value for money
Awario offers a 14-day free trial after which you can choose between one of 3 subscription plans or the possibility to create a Custom one. On average, you'll get 1 932 mentions for $1 with Awario. Google Alerts is absolutely free, but the price you pay is missing out on lots of important mentions.
Performance
To measure the performance rates of both services, we've entered the same 3 keywords in each platform: "Airbnb", "Booking.com", and "TripAdvisor". At the very start Awario showed 1 705 mentions, while Google Alerts returned 45. After 1 day, Awario found 150 000 mentions (reached the mentions per alert limit, but was still getting new mentions and replacing the old ones), and Google Alerts showed only 73 mentions. This test shows that Awario collects way more results at the start as well as in the long run.
Collaboration
Awario doesn't have a dedicated feature for collaborating with your team. However, you can share your login credentials and work together under the same account. Google Alerts also doesn't offer a multiple users feature, but if you share an account with your team members, you can work on the same project simultaneously.
Ease of use
Google Alerts revolves around simplicity. To create an alert there you should enter the keyword(s) in the search bar or choose recommended alerts (by default Google offers you to track your email, your name, or the hottest topics/brands). To create a project in Awario, you have to go through a bit more complex, yet more flexible process. Creating a project in Awario involves creating alerts for your brand, your competitors, and a leads alert which searches for potential customers.
Overall
Google Alerts is still a very powerful tool. It'd be smart to choose it if you are okay with web results only and the lack of historical data. But if you're looking for a more powerful alternative, Awario is a better option. It is better for solving more complicated tasks like running campaigns that involve monitoring social media, statistics reports, and direct engagement with users. Awario is also designed for creating more complex queries involving Boolean operators and various filters. It may also be used for sales prospecting and social media support.

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