This Best Practice gives you information on Use Cases and Smart Alerts.

1. What are Smart Alerts?
2. How can smart alerts be created?
3. How can Smart Alerts be analyzed?

 

1. What are Smart Alerts?

Smart Alerts allow for receiving notifications when data values change significantly. With the help of Machine Learning, Webtrekk derives a corridor from values that were tracked in the past. Here, also seasonalities, e.g., weekdays, are taken into consideration. All data that lies outside of this corridor is considered a significant change. If such data is recognized, an alert is triggered, i.e., an automatically generated e-mail is sent. You can define the sensitivity to adjust how far data can lie outside of the corridor to trigger an alert.

Smart Alerts can be configured on daily or hourly basis:

• Monitoring of days
  Data that was collected within the last eight weeks is used to derive the corridor.
  Webtrekk always checks for an alert when all data for a complete day is available in the system.
• Monitoring of hours
  Data that was collected within the last eight days is used to derive the corridor.
  Note that data is always checked for the hour before the last hour as it must be assured that all data is completely available. E.g., an alert recognized at 11 am shows an anomaly for the hour between 9 am and 10 am.

2. How can Smart Alerts be created?

First, click on the bell symbol (1). Afterwards, click on "Alerts" (2), and finally on "Create New Alert".

 

Example 1: Checking Visits hourly

This Alert checks the visits each hour. Therefore, it is useful to examine the traffic in general.

Configuration

Use the following settings.

 

What do I do when the alert is triggered?

The simplest explanation is seasonal effects, for example, holidays. Please note that for hourly alerts, only data of the last eight days is considered.

If a seasonal effect does not apply, you should check your campaign channels ((Marketing > Campaign Categories > [Name of the Campaign Channel]). Often the reason is a new or discontinued campaign. If there are similar shifts for all campaign channels, there may be technical reasons (for example, that the website was not available for a certain amount of time).

 

Example 2: Checking Campaign Channels Daily

This alerts checks the usage of single campaign channels. Therefore it is useful to check for changes in the usage of your campaign channels.

 

Configuration

You can monitor up to 10 campaign channels. To this end, choose "Top 10".

Use the following settings:

 

Alternatively, you can choose specific campaign channels to be monitored. To this end, use the option "In list".

 

When is the Alert triggered?

The alert is triggered if in the hour before the last hour, the visits for one or more channels are above or below the corridor (i.e., not within the expected values).

 

Example scenario:
The visits for "SEA" have risen significantly; for "Newsletter", they remained on a constant level; for "Display", they dropped significantly.

You will receive two notifications:

• Visits via SEA haven risen, and
• Visits via SEA have dropped.

 

What do I do is the alert triggered?

If you observe the same phenomenon for all campaign channels, seasonal effects may be the cause. Alternatively, there may be technical reasons (for example, that the website was not available for a certain amount of time).

If there are differences between the single campaign channels, changes at the campaign setup might be the cause. It also could be that an expiration date has been set for campaigns in Webtrekk and that they are therefore not tracked anymore. Another reason may be that the media codes that were actually used do not correspond anymore to the media codes specified in the marketing configuration.

 

Example 3: Checking Campaign Channels for Tablet and Smartphone daily

This alert checks the usage of different campaign channels solely for accesses via Tablet and Smartphone. Therefore, this alert suits if you want to analyze mobile traffic specifically.

 

Configuration

 

Use the following settings:

 

 

When is the alert triggered?

The alert is triggered when the visits are above the expected values for tablets and smartphones within the hour before the last hour.

 

Example Scenario:
The mobile visits via the channel "SEA" have risen significantly. Via "Newsletter" they remained on a constant level, via "Display" they dropped.

You will receive two notifications:

• The mobile visits via the campaign channel "SEA" have risen, and
• The mobile visits via the campaign channel "Display" have dropped.

 

What to do if an alert is triggered?

If the same phenomenon can be observed for all campaign channels, then seasonal effects may be the reason. Alternatively, there may be technical reasons (for example, that the website was not available for a certain amount of time). 

If there are differences between the single campaign channels, one cause may be that the campaign setup has been changed. It also could be that an expiration date has been set for campaigns in Webtrekk and that they are therefore not tracked anymore. Another reason may be that the media codes that were actually used do not correspond anymore to the media codes specified in the marketing configuration.

 

3. How can Smart Alerts be analyzed?

Besides the e-mail notification, within the user interface, more information on alerts is provided.

The number of triggered alerts is shown at the top of the bell symbol.

A complete list of alerts that have been triggered can be found at "Alerts > Feed".
The mouse-over gives you more information on the development over time.