Understanding your new Insights reports should be effortless. Here we explain the differences between Insights and PI, Classic Reports and Billing.
| Classic Reports | Performance Insights | Billing | Insights | ||
| Events and counts | Seeds | Yes | No | Yes | No, coming in a future release |
| Test seeds | Yes | No | Yes | No, coming in a future release | |
| Soft bounce retries (email only) | No | No | No | Yes | |
| Time windows | Timezone | Matches browser or VPN | Matches Campaign, but can be changed at the dashboard user preference level | ||
| Message date A MailingId may have 1 or more Batches A Batch = ReportId or MessageOccurrenceId |
Send completion date for a batch | Send completion date for the mailing | Send completion date for a batch | Send start date for a batch | |
| Non-send events | Attribution window | 45 days | 28 days | Not-applicable | 60 days |
| Merging of contacts | Yes | No | Not-applicable | ContactId changes are not updated so unique counts could be different - no material impact. |
Case study
Comparing reports from two systems can be difficult. Each system has its differences as indicated above, and they can be more visible in the context of time windows, especially months. Below is an example illustrating how messages can be distributed differently across months for a single mailing based on when the mailing starts and begins.
How does the time window impact 750 emails in 3 equal batches:
- Batch 1 begins November 30th at 10 PM EST and completes at 11 PM
- Batch 2 begins November 30th at 11 PM EST and completes December 1st at 2 AM
- Batch 3 begins December 2nd at 5 AM EST
Insights would show 500 mailings in November and 250 in December based on the start dates.
Classic Reports would show 250 mailings in November and 500 in December based on the completion dates.
Billing would depict results similarly to Classic Reports.
Performance Insights would show 750 mailings in November based on the final overall completion date.
Furthermore, this could change slightly depending on the timezone. Behind the scenes, the data is stored in the UTC system date format and then altered to the end user's point of view. Data could shift forward or backward and reallocate into a different month from one user to another for some of the reporting systems.
*Billing currently utilizes the Classic Reporting database of record. In 2024, this will transition to a source from the same database of records that Insights uses.