Rank Sonar
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Concepts

Concepts: Alerts and event types

Every type of event Rank Sonar can detect, and how to route alerts to the right channels.

Rank Sonar detects changes across your apps and competitors, then dispatches alerts based on the rules you configure.

Event types we detect

| Type | Triggered when | |---|---| | rank_change | An app's rank for a tracked keyword moves by more than your configured threshold (default: 5 positions) | | rating_drop | App rating decreases by more than the threshold (default: 0.2 stars) | | rating_rise | App rating increases by more than the threshold | | review_surge | New reviews arrive at >2× your normal daily rate | | metadata_change | Title, subtitle, description, or price changes | | screenshot_change | Any screenshot changes (detected via SHA-256 hash) | | new_competitor | An app appears in 3+ of your keywords' Top 3 lists | | category_position_change | Category rank moves significantly | | top_chart_entry | Your app or a competitor enters the top 100 of their category |

Severity levels

  • info — neutral information
  • warning — likely worth investigating
  • critical — usually a regression you'd want to fix urgently (rating dropping below 4.0, rank dropping out of Top 10 for a high-volume keyword)

Dispatch channels

Each alert rule routes to one or more channels:

  • In-app — appears in the Alerts feed (always-on)
  • Email — sent to your account email (and additional recipients you add)
  • Slack — posted to a Slack channel via incoming webhook (Pro+)
  • Push — Expo Push Notifications to your iOS/Android device (Pro+)
  • Webhook — POST to a custom URL with HMAC-SHA256 signature (Studio+)

Configuring alert rules

Visit Alerts → Rules → New rule. Each rule has:

  • Event type to match
  • Conditions (e.g., for rank_change: minimum delta, optional keyword filter)
  • Channels to dispatch to
  • Active flag (toggle without deleting)

A common starter setup:

  1. "Rank dropped 5+ positions" → email + Slack for any tracked keyword
  2. "Rating dropped 0.2+" → email + push (critical) for own apps
  3. "Competitor changed metadata" → email for all competitors
  4. "Screenshot change detected" → in-app only for competitors

Daily and weekly digests

Distinct from event-based alerts, digests are scheduled summary emails:

  • Weekly digest (default: on, Monday 08:00 in workspace timezone) — top movers, new alerts, rating trends
  • Daily digest (default: off, opt-in) — yesterday's events summary

Configure in Alerts → Preferences.

AI weekly insights

In addition to the data-driven digests, Pro+ tiers receive a Claude-written narrative summary of the week. Generated Monday 06:00 UTC, delivered alongside the weekly digest at 08:00. Example:

"This week, three of your competitors updated their screenshots. Yummly tested a new caption emphasizing 'meal planning' over 'recipes' — your rank for that keyword dropped 4 positions in the same window..."

Insights live in the Insights tab and are also embedded in the weekly digest email.

Rate limits

To prevent alert fatigue, we cap dispatches:

  • Maximum 50 events per workspace per hour to email
  • Maximum 200 events per workspace per hour to Slack
  • Maximum 100 push notifications per device per day

Beyond the cap, events are batched into a summary.

See also