Tender Alerts: How to Set Them Up So You Only See Tenders Worth Bidding On

Most tender alerts fail in one of two ways. They are too broad, and your inbox fills with irrelevant notices until you stop reading them. Or they are too narrow, and you miss the tender that was described with a word you did not think of. A good alert is built like a good search: deliberately, tested against past results, and reviewed every few weeks. This guide shows how.

What a tender alert actually is

A tender alert is a saved search that runs automatically and emails you new matches. There are two broad kinds. Portal alerts come from the official site where the buyer publishes: they are free on many portals, cover only that portal, and use that portal's search syntax. Aggregator alerts cover many portals at once, so you set your criteria once. Most serious bidders use both: aggregator alerts to cast a wide net, and portal alerts on the three or four sites that matter most to them.

Check what each portal offers; most large ones let you save a search or subscribe to notifications, but features and sign-up requirements differ and change. See our e-procurement portals guide.

Step 1: Build the keyword list from how buyers write

Buyers do not describe your service the way you do. A cleaning company may need to find “janitorial services”, “facility hygiene”, “housekeeping” and “grounds maintenance”. A software firm may need “ICT”, “information systems”, “digital platform”, “ERP” and “SaaS”. Build your list in four layers:

1. Core terms: what you sell, in the plainest words.
2. Synonyms and buyer vocabulary: read ten past tenders in your field and note the words they use. Our glossary helps with procurement terms.
3. Local-language terms: for tenders in countries where documents are not in English, add the local words (for example Spanish “licitación”, French “appel d'offres”, Portuguese “pregão” or “licitação”). Titles are sometimes only in the original language.
4. Negative keywords: words that signal a different thing, such as “software” when you sell “soft furnishings”. Where an alert tool supports exclusions, use them.

Step 2: Add classification codes where they exist

Codes are more precise than words because they do not depend on spelling or language. The main systems are CPV (used for EU-style notices), UNSPSC (used by several countries and many international agencies) and, for the United States, NAICS and Product Service Codes. Pick the three to six codes that cover what you sell, check them against a few past tenders you know you would have wanted, and add them to the alert. Remember that not every buyer fills in codes correctly, so use codes and keywords together rather than relying on either alone. See CPV code.

Step 3: Choose countries and buyer types honestly

List the countries where you can really perform: where you can legally invoice, deliver and be paid. For each, note the practical limits: local registration, local partner requirements, language, tax clearance. Many bidders add one or two “stretch” countries and keep them in a separate alert so the main list stays clean. Our country pages show what is open in each country, and the country guides explain local rules, for example the UK, India, Australia and Nigeria.

Step 4: Set value and deadline limits

Decide the smallest contract worth the effort of bidding, and the largest you could realistically deliver or finance. Many notices do not state a value, so a hard value filter can hide good tenders. A common compromise is to apply the filter on one alert and run a second, unfiltered alert with tighter keywords. Also ignore tenders with fewer days left than you need: if you need ten days to prepare a bid, there is no point alerting on tenders closing in three.

Step 5: Pick a frequency you will actually keep up with

A daily alert you read is better than an instant alert you ignore. Most small teams do well with a single daily digest, read at a fixed time. If you bid in a market with very short deadlines, such as quotations that close within days, daily is the minimum. If you bid on large projects with weeks of lead time, weekly is enough. TenderG sends a weekly or daily email of new tenders that match your profile and clear a match score that you choose; see a sample alert email. Plan limits apply, so check the pricing page for what each plan includes.

Step 6: Triage in two passes

1. Pass one, 30 seconds each. Read the title, buyer, country and deadline. Delete anything clearly outside your scope.
2. Pass two, ten minutes each. For what is left, read the eligibility section and the award criteria using the routine in how to read a tender notice. Then decide using a scorecard.

Step 7: Review the alert every month

An alert is a hypothesis about where your wins will come from. Check it against reality:

• How many alerts did you open, shortlist, and bid on? If you shortlisted fewer than one in ten, the alert is too broad.
• Did you hear about a tender some other way that the alert missed? Find out why (wrong word, wrong code, wrong country) and fix the alert.
• Read recent award notices in your field. Which buyers keep awarding? Add them to a watch list.

Common mistakes

• One huge alert with every keyword. Split by service line so you can tune each.
• Searching only in English in non-English countries.
• Ignoring amendments. A date change or a new document can make a tender winnable or not. Re-check tenders you are considering shortly before the deadline.
• Trusting any single source as complete. Even good aggregators can miss notices; use a portal alert on your top buyers as a safety net.

Ready to set one up? Browse open tenders to test your keywords before you create the alert: if the first page of results is mostly irrelevant, tighten the terms first.