🎬 Daily ad spend monitoring with Google Sheets and Slack threshold alerts

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Description

This n8n workflow checks daily ad spend totals from a Google Sheet and sends a Slack alert if spend exceeds $100. It can be scheduled to run automatically or manually triggered for testing. This is perfect for marketing teams who want to monitor budget spikes in near real-time.

✅ Key Features

• 📥 Google Sheets Integration: Pulls raw spend data from a shared spreadsheet.
• 📆 Scheduled or Manual Execution: Can run daily on a schedule or manually for testing.
• 📈 Aggregates Spend: Summarizes daily totals from raw data.
• 🧠 Logic Check: Alerts only when spend exceeds a certain threshold.
• 🔔 Slack Alerts: Sends instant notification to a specified channel.

🧰 What You’ll Need

• Google Cloud Project with Sheets API enabled
• OAuth2 Credential for Google Sheets
• Slack Bot Token with permission to post to your workspace
• Your Google Sheet link and tab name

📎 Copy this Sample Google Sheet to Use:
Marketing Data Sheet - Copy Me

🔧 Step-by-Step Setup

1️⃣ Schedule or Manual Trigger

• Node: Schedule Workflow or Test Workflow
• Purpose: Either run daily via a cron-like rule or manually trigger the flow.

2️⃣ Get Google Sheet Data

• Node: Get Data
• What it does: Fetches all rows from your connected sheet.
• Setup:
  • Go to Google Cloud Console
  • Create a new project
  • Enable Google Sheets API
  • Create OAuth2 credentials for a desktop or web application
  • Connect your Google account in n8n via OAuth2
  • Grant access to the sheet you want to read (ensure it’s shared with your OAuth email)
  • Use the copied sheet’s link when connecting in n8n

3️⃣ Summarize Spend by Day

• Node: Sum spend by Day
• What it does: Groups the dataset by Date and sums the Spend ($) column
• Requirements:
  • Your sheet must have a header row with Date and Spend ($) as columns

4️⃣ Sort by Most Recent Date

• Node: Sort Dates Descending
• What it does: Sorts all entries by the Date field so that the most recent day is first
• Custom JavaScript:

const items = $input.all();
items.sort((a, b) => new Date(b.json.Date) - new Date(a.json.Date));
return items;

5️⃣ Select Top Result

• Node: Keep only Last Day
• What it does: Captures the top row (most recent day) for evaluation
• Fields: Sets only Date and sum_Spend_($) to keep things clean

6️⃣ Check Spend Threshold

• Node: Check if Spend over $100
• What it does: Uses an IF node to compare sum_Spend_($) against a 100 threshold
• Logic:

sum_Spend_($) > 100

7️⃣ Send Slack Notification

• Node: Send Slack Message
• What it does: Sends a message to a Slack channel if the threshold is exceeded
• Setup:
  • Go to Slack API
  • Create a new app
  • Enable chat:write and channels:read scopes under OAuth & Permissions
  • Install the app to your workspace
  • Copy the OAuth Token into your Slack credentials in n8n
  • Select your target channel from the dropdown (must be public or the bot must be invited)
• Message:

  The spend for the most recent day is over $100

8️⃣ No Action if Under Budget

• Node: Do Nothing. Under 100
• Purpose: This path simply ends the flow with no action if spend is below the threshold

👤 Created By

Robert Breen
Automation Consultant | AI Workflow Designer | n8n Expert
📧 rbreen@ynteractive.com
🌐 ynteractive.com
🔗 LinkedIn

🏷️ Tags

slack marketing automation budget alert daily schedule google sheets threshold logic n8n spend tracking data summarization

🔗 Nodes Used

Google Sheets, Slack, Schedule Trigger, Summarize

📥 Import

Download workflow.json and import into n8n: Workflow menu → Import from File

📖 Importing guide · 🔑 Credential setup