Act-On Analytics Overview

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Act-On Analytics is the analytics experience inside Act-On for understanding how your marketing is performing. You ask questions in plain language, build custom dashboards (Liveboards), and let AI surface changes and insights in your data. This article is the map: what's on the Analytics home page, what each feature does, and where to go for the detail.

Why this matters: Act-On collects a lot of data. Without an analytics layer over it, most of that data stays locked inside individual reports. Analytics lets you pull the threads that matter to you (send performance, form fills, page views, campaign ROI), keep KPIs on a watchlist, and get alerted when something moves. Use this page as a jumping-off point rather than a start-to-finish read.
Quick Reference (Advanced Users) - Click to Expand
Try it like this: Open Reports > Analytics, type "top 10 messages by click rate last 30 days" in the Question bar and press Enter. You'll get an Answer (chart or table) built from your email data. Star it in the Library to add it to Favorites, then pin the click rate KPI to your Watchlist so you can see it each time you visit the Home tab.

The three building blocks of Analytics:

  1. Get Answers to your data or business questions by asking AI, building queries, or applying standard queries.
  2. Use Answers to build Liveboards (or edit the standard ones) and add KPI Answers to your watchlist.
  3. Use AI Highlights, AI Agent, and Spot IQ to analyse your Answers and data points for insights.

Access Act-On Analytics

Note: Many Analytics features require the Dynamic Business Analytics or Premium AI Analytics package. Contact your Account Manager to upgrade. If you don't have either package, you can still use the Standard Analytics liveboards.

When signed in to Act-On, go to Reports > Analytics. The Analytics Home tab opens:

Analytics Home tab

  • Have a conversation with your data in the Question bar. Select a data type on the left and ask any data or business question. The AI data search chatbot creates Answers (such as a chart or table) based on your question. Keep chatting to evolve the result, dive deeper, or explore more. Sample questions are shown to get you started; they relate to the data type you selected.
  • Add KPI Answers to your Watchlist under the question bar to keep a pulse on the stats you care about. See below.
  • Organise favourite Answers and Liveboards in the Favorites section. See below.
  • The Library list at the bottom contains all Answers and Liveboards. Search, filter, and sort to find them. See below.
  • Customize Homepage at the very bottom lets you show or hide any of these sections.
  • To return to the Analytics home page (for example, from a Liveboard), click the left arrow at the top left.

Back arrow to return to Analytics home

Want to dive right in? Head to the Act-On Analytics Walkthrough for a 30-minute guided tour.

Answers

Answers are individual data or business questions answered with charts and visualisations, similar to a single report. See Act-On Analytics: Answers.

  • Add Answers to Liveboards and display KPI Answers on your Watchlist.
  • Act-On ships standard Answers in the Library.

Standard Answers in the Library

Liveboards

Liveboards are customisable collections of Answers. See Act-On Analytics: Liveboards.

  • Create Liveboards to show the Answers you want, giving dynamic at-a-glance overviews and deep-dive insights.
  • Act-On ships standard Liveboards in the Library.

Standard Liveboards in the Library

For a tour of the Email Performance standard Liveboard, see Exploring the Email Performance Analytics Liveboard.

AI Highlights

AI Highlights surfaces insights on how your KPI metrics changed in a Liveboard over time, so you can focus on the changes that matter.

  1. Open the Liveboard you want (from Library or Favorites).
  2. At the top right, click AI Highlights.

AI Highlights button on a Liveboard

  1. A progress indicator appears. When it's done, click View.
  2. The analysis shows data points of interest on the left. Click any of them to see what factors led to the change on the right.
Tip: AI Highlights works on KPI metrics measured over time, such as Delivered Rate, Open Rate, Click Rate, and Click-to-Open Rate.

AI Agent

Got a question about a specific chart on a Liveboard? Use the AI Agent chatbot to explore further.

  1. Hover over the chart you want and click AI Agent.

AI Agent button on a Liveboard tile

  1. Type your question to dive deeper.

Spot IQ

Spot IQ uses AI to discover insights from your data. See Act-On Analytics: Spot IQ Analysis.

  • When viewing an Answer or Liveboard (not in the Watchlist), run Spot IQ on any Answer or on any data point in a visualisation to dig into the data and find insights. Right-click a data point, or click the ellipsis on the Answer tile.

Spot IQ launched from a data point or tile

Watchlist & Alerts

Create a watchlist of KPIs from Liveboards and Answers to keep a pulse on important stats.

  1. Under the question bar, on the right, click + Add KPI to watchlist.
  2. On the left, select the Answer or Liveboard you want.
  3. On the right, select KPIs from those available.
  4. Click Add KPIs. Alerts are set up for the KPIs you add.

Configure alerts for KPIs in your Watchlist:

  1. Select a KPI from your Watchlist.
    • To set up a new alert, on the right click the bell icon, select an alert type, and click Next.
    • To edit an existing alert, on the right click the ellipsis > Manage alerts, hover over the alert you want, and on the right click the ellipsis > Edit alert.
  2. Set the alert name, conditions (threshold, frequency), and subscribers. You can also add a custom message and view the KPI query.
  3. Click Save.

Favorites

  • In the Favorites section, click + Add a new favorite, select from the list (search is available), and click Add.

Add a new favorite dialog

  • You can also click the stars in the Library list to add Answers and Liveboards to Favorites. Favorites have yellow stars.
  • On the right, click Organize and drag to reorder favourites.
  • Remove a favourite by clicking the yellow star in either Favorites or the Library.

Library search, filter & sort

In the Library list, search, filter, and sort to find the Answers and Liveboards you want:

  • At the top left, type in the search box. Results match on Name and Author as you type.
  • At the top left, filter All Answers and Liveboards, or just Yours.
  • At the top right, show All Liveboards or All Answers.
  • Add filterable tags to Answers and Liveboards. Select a checkbox on the left, click Edit tags, and add tags from those available.

Edit tags on an Answer or Liveboard

  • Filter using the list headers. Click a header to filter by:
    • Type: Answers, Liveboards
    • Favorites
    • Tags
    • Author
  • Sort by Last viewed or Modified, ascending or descending, using the header on the right.

Share Answers & Liveboards

  1. In the Library list, select the checkboxes on the left of the Answers and Liveboards you want to share, then at the top left click Share. You can also share from the Favorites section.

Share dialog for Answers and Liveboards

  1. Select users and groups to share with. If you enter an email address for someone who hasn't signed up, they need to sign up to get access.
  2. Select the Send notification checkbox if you want, and optionally add a message.
  3. Click Share.

True Open

Detect and filter out suspected bot activity in your Analytics with Act-On's AI True Open. See True Open in Act-On Analytics.

Counts vs. other Act-On reports

It is possible for counts to not match between an Analytics report and the following Act-On reports:

Analytics caps counts at a point in time by design, for performance reasons: approximately 27 months for Advanced Analytics users and 12 months for Standard. Set your date range accordingly to keep figures accurate.

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