Trackers in Muck Rack
All your monitoring and reporting tools — Alerts, Coverage Reports, Dashboards, Trend Reports, and Key Message Reports — can be connected to a single Tracker, so you can manage all your media monitoring from one place. Spend less time configuring searches and more time analyzing coverage.
What Are Trackers?
Trackers are saved search criteria (keywords + filters) that act as a single source of truth across Muck Rack. Instead of managing separate Saved Searches, Alerts, and Coverage Reports, you define your criteria in one place. All of your edits automatically stay in sync everywhere your Tracker is connected.
You can create the following types of Trackers:
Article Trackers
People Trackers
Media Outlet Trackers
Broadcast Trackers
Social Listening Trackers*
Key Benefits of Trackers
Always in sync: Edits to a Tracker instantly update any Alerts, Dashboards, and Coverage Reports it's connected to.
Preview before saving: Edit your Tracker directly from the Search results page, previewing your results before committing to any changes.
Simpler and cleaner connections: One concept powers everything; no more jumping between Saved Searches and Alerts.
Streamlined creation flow: Create Alerts, Dashboards, and Coverage Reports from one place after creating a Tracker.
Easier cleanup: Quickly spot and manage duplicate searches post-transition.
How to Create a Tracker
If you're setting up keyword monitoring or a news alert for a topic — such as a brand, event, or person — creating a Tracker is your first step. Trackers connect Muck Rack’s monitoring and reporting tools. When you edit and update a Tracker, all the connected Alerts, Coverage Reports, and Dashboards are instantly updated.
You will create a Tracker directly from search results.
Submit a Search query from any page within Muck Rack using the Search bar.
Select the Create Tracker button.
Select the Monitor or Analyze button.
Choose to connect it immediately to an Alert, Coverage Report, or Dashboard — or save it for later by selecting Skip and close.
You can also create a new Tracker directly from the Trackers table view using the + Start Tracker button.
Create a Tracker from the Trackers Table View
The + Start Tracker button in the Trackers table view lets you create a new Tracker without running a search first. A dropdown and keyword entry slider guide you through setup in just a few steps.
Go to Monitoring > Trackers.
Select the + Start Tracker button in the top-right corner of the table view. A dropdown menu will appear.
Choose your Tracker type from the dropdown:
People
Media Outlet
Article
Podcast
Broadcast
Social Listening
A slider panel will appear. Enter your keywords to define what this Tracker monitors.
Complete any additional settings and save your Tracker.
View and Edit Trackers
The Trackers section in Muck Rack allows you to review, edit, and sort your saved searches. This is beneficial if you are regularly repeating multiple searches and need to reference them for different subjects.
To view the Trackers page, go to Monitoring > Trackers in your navigation bar.
Edit a Tracker
If you notice that coverage you do not want is appearing in your connected Alerts or reports, you may want to edit your search terms or filters. To do this, you must edit the Tracker that is powering those objects.
TIP: To quickly determine which Tracker is powering an object, navigate to the page for that object type and select the number listed in the Trackers column for the relevant object.
For example, if I wanted to quickly access the Tracker for my "Tomatoes + Sustainability" Alert, I would go to Monitoring > Alerts, then select the number 1 listed next to that Alert in the table. (As shown below)
To edit a Tracker, open it from the Trackers page (Monitoring > Trackers) or (from another area in Muck Rack) to access the live results and make adjustments from your search results page.
Select your Tracker from the Trackers page to open the Search results for that Tracker. The tab above the search bar will display its name:
To update your Tracker's search terms, edit the text in the search bar and run the search. Once your new results load, select Update to save your changes.
Select Update to save over the original Tracker, or select the dropdown, then Copy and open as new or Revert to last saved.
Revert to last saved: Restores the previous Saved Search's query and filters
Copy and open as new: Opens a new search and retains the query and filters.
These changes automatically apply across all features powered by that Tracker (Alerts, Coverage Reports, Dashboards, etc.)
How to Use Trackers Across Muck Rack
Alerts
Trackers now power alerts. The Trackers will be created during the Alert setup process.
How to create an Alert from your Tracker
Choose one of your Trackers from the Tracker table view. Then, select the Create Alert button.
NOTE: You can only create alerts using Article and Broadcast Trackers.
Add your Alert details, Delivery settings, and Content to Monitor.
NOTE: When the frequency in the Delivery settings is set to 'As published', up to 2 Trackers can be used to power one Alert.' Otherwise, up to 10 Trackers can be used to power a single Alert.
How to power an Alert by multiple Trackers
The Content to Monitor section of the alert settings gives you the option to add up to 10 Trackers to power a single Alert.
Select Add Trackers to choose your Trackers from the drop-down menu.
Use the arrows in the top left corner of each card to adjust the order in which content will appear in your Alert.
The Display Settings lets you choose which metrics to show in your alert.
For more information on Alerts, refer to the Introduction to Alerts article.
How to create a Tracker from an Alert
Go to your Search Results page, then select the Create Alert button.
NOTE: You can also create alerts by navigating to Monitoring > Alerts in the menu bar. Then select the Create Alert button.
You’ll see Content to Monitor listed in your alert settings. From there, you can choose Trackers to add to an Alert.
NOTE: Up to 10 Trackers can be used to power a single Alert.
Coverage Reports
Article and Broadcast Trackers power Coverage Reports. They will automatically update the Content to Monitor any time changes are made to that Tracker.
How to connect a Tracker to a Coverage Report
Open one of your Trackers and select Automate Coverage Report above the search results.
Select the Coverage Report you’d like the Tracker to connect to and select Save. From there, you can view your updated Coverage Report.
NOTE: You can connect up to 50 Trackers to a single Coverage Report.
Dashboards
Trackers can also be used as a data source to power your Dashboard widgets.
How to add a Tracker to a Dashboard widget
Go to Reporting > Dashboards.
Select Edit on a widget.
Select your data source as Tracker.
Managing Trackers
The Trackers table view helps you easily manage all your active Trackers. You can:
View the number of connected Alerts, Coverage Reports, and Dashboards.
Filter by linked objects to quickly identify where each Tracker is used.
Delete duplicates or unused Trackers.
How to update a Tracker
Go to Monitoring > Trackers for your table view.
Select the name of the Tracker you want to edit.
Adjust your search terms or filters directly from the Search results page.
Select the Update button to save and apply the updated search criteria to your Tracker.
NOTE: Any updates to a Tracker instantly apply to every Alert, Coverage Report, or Dashboard it powers; no extra steps needed.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Question | Answer |
What happens if a Saved Search powered multiple objects? | A single Tracker will be created and attached to each object. You may see some duplicates. |
Can I still manually add content to Coverage Reports? | Yes. The option to manually add articles will remain available. |
Why are my trackers only capturing print/online articles and not broadcast? | Trackers based on article searches do not include broadcast clips because broadcast is a separate search type. To monitor broadcast content, create a separate Tracker specifically for broadcast monitoring. |
Why can't I select the Update button after editing my Boolean search terms? | The Update button only becomes active after your updated search has run and returned results.
If you've edited a Boolean query, select the search icon to run the new search first.
Once results load, the Update button will become available to save your changes. |
Why is my Tracker returning a large volume of irrelevant results after I changed the date range? | This can happen when keywords have been removed from the Tracker.
Without keywords scoping the search, broadening the date range can surface a large volume of unrelated content.
Select your Tracker, confirm your search terms are intact, and re-run the search before selecting Update. |
Can I remove a specific article from my Tracker's results? | No; Trackers function as live queries against the database, so individual articles can't be removed from results directly.
To curate a specific set of articles, use a Coverage Report instead. Coverage Reports allow you to manually add or remove items, giving you full control over the content. |
What if I cannot see or edit a Tracker’s settings? | The Tracker may be set to "Only Me" by its owner. The owner must adjust the sharing settings to allow access. |
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