Make.com blueprint: hourly brand news alert to Slack

By Keencrest · 2026-11-01

Data: The GDELT Project. GDELT permits commercial use and redistribution with a citation and a link, and every row the Actor returns carries that citation. The Actor is not affiliated with or endorsed by GDELT.

Download: make-gdelt-brand-alert-slack.blueprint.json. Import with Scenarios, Create a new scenario, the three dots, Import Blueprint. The n8n equivalent and the overall guide: Get a Slack alert when your brand is in the news.

The four modules

Module	What it does
HTTP, Make a request	Posts to the Actor's run-sync endpoint with `watchMode` on, so only new articles come back. Your Apify token goes in the Authorization header
Iterator	Splits the returned array into one bundle per article
Text aggregator	Builds one Slack-formatted line per article and joins them
HTTP, Make a request	Posts the text to your Slack incoming webhook. No Slack app connection needed

Settings to change

keywords (and languages) in the first module's request body; hoursBack applies to the first run only.
YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN in the header: your own token. The file contains no token.
The Slack webhook URL in the last module.
Set the schedule yourself (the blueprint does not carry one): hourly is a good start.

Cost and limits

$0.002 per article returned, with maxTotalChargeUsd=1 per run and maxItems 100. An hour with no new article returns an empty array, so the iterator emits nothing and no message should be posted. Unlike the n8n file there is no 15-line cap: a busy hour sends up to 100 lines in one message, so lower maxItems if that is too long. Make operations are consumed per module and per article; check your plan's allowance.

What was tested

The JSON was parsed and checked for structure (module ids in order, the aggregator pointing at the iterator, the request body being valid JSON, no token). It was not imported into Make and never run: the module settings follow the format of Make's own export that we used for the email-lookup blueprint, but Make is strict about module versions, so expect to re-pick a module or two after import and tell us which. Only the Actor's watch mode was tested, on the Apify platform.

Try it: GDELT News Monitor on Apify. $0.002 per article returned, no start fee; reading files and filtering is free. The Apify free plan includes monthly credit, so a test run costs nothing out of pocket.

Related guides

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