Alerts

Get Alerted When Your Numbers Are Down or Goals Are Off-Track

3 min read

After reading this guide, you’ll understand…

  • Why it’s important for every team member to be keyed to individual alerts
  • The differences in using alerts for leading vs. lagging indicators
  • Ways you can build out robust notification systems to effectively manage campaign performance
Why use Alerts?

Your data doesn’t care that it’s the weekend…

Modern business has become asynchronous… even your data. This means reviewing performance weekly or monthly isn’t enough. Without an alert system in place, your team is left…

  • In waiting mode—if your meeting cadence defines when you look at your numbers, that means precious time is spent waiting to discuss issues (instead of working on them).
  • Pulling overtime—When your ad platform goes haywire, key team members get pulled into solving data puzzles after hours.
  • Handling anxious clients—Trust breaks down with each emergency your client has to be involved in.

When you set up an alerts system in Databox, you’re suddenly able to…

  • Get ahead of downward trends – by defining simple conditions and qualifiers, you can quickly set up an Alert for any metric. This means that if your performance starts to dip, you’ll get notified when it matters most. 
  • Stay in the know, without being logged in – alert yourself or your team via email, Slack, and mobile, to effortlessly receive updates on your performance. Celebrate the wins when it matters most and always ensure you’re steering your ship in the right direction. 
  • Keep clients care-free – by adding your clients as users in Databox, you’ll be able to instantly notify them when goals are reached or KPIs have experienced significant growth. This will improve transparency and, ultimately, strengthen the agency/client relationship.
How To Use Alerts

Create a “Something Is Wrong” Alert for Your Personal KPIs

When every team member feels responsible for their own KPIs, ownership increases across the organization. This creates a wide and secure safety net that builds trust laterally (peer to peer) and vertically (direct report to manager).

Before setting up an alert for any of your KPIs, it’s important to have a few things decided first:

  1. What metrics are you personally responsible for? Make a list of 2-3. 
  2. Decide on a value for those metrics that means “something is definitely wrong, but it can still be fixed”. If the values aren’t a little scary, it isn’t pressing enough for an alert. But if they’re too scary, there may not be hope in solving the issue.
  3. Are these values based on daily, weekly, or monthly reporting? Make a quick note of the time period for each.
  4. Got those values ready to go? Let’s set up your first Alert.

To create a new Alert navigate to Notifications and click +New Alert. Then:

  • Start by choosing the metric you want to build an Alert for. 
    • You can do this by searching for the metric name, Data Source, or by clicking Metric type > Favorite to find metrics that you’ve previously favorited. 
  • Use the numbers you chose as the condition and qualifier. You can choose from…
    • Less than or greater than = a specific number 
    • Decreased or increased by more than = a specific change in the number
    • % has decreased or increased by more than = a specific percentage change in the number, both positive and negative
  • Select the time period. 
  • Choose your delivery method.
  • Hit Save

Your first alert has been created! You can repeat this process for the rest of your KPIs.

 

Create Alert Systems that Tie Together Leading and Lagging Indicators

Let’s say you’re managing a sales team and want to gauge the effectiveness of your sales strategies. Analyzing your leading indicators against your lagging indicators will provide valuable insights into your team’s performance and help you understand how well your strategies are working. 

For example, you’ve identified that your leading indicator is the number of deals created and your lagging indicator is the number of closed won deals. To set up this Alert in Databox, you would: 

  • Select Deals Created as the metric you want to build the Alert for 
  • Define your conditions and qualifiers
    • Because we want to see an increase in the number of deals created, select greater than as your condition and type your desired value 
  • Define the time period for which you want the Alert to be triggered

To add your lagging indicator, click Advanced Settings. Then under related metrics: 

  • Select HubSpot as your Data Source and  Deals Won as your metric.
  • Select the time period for the related metric 
  • Press Save!
 

By setting up this Alert, you can closely monitor the relationship between these two metrics to ensure you’re always on top of your performance. For example, if you received a notification to say the number of deals created has increased, but the number of won deals is relatively low, this could indicate a potential issue with your sales process. When investigating this further, you might realize that your sales team would benefit from additional training on sales techniques to help boost close rate.

Never Let Your CPC Get Too High or Max Out Your Campaign Budget Again

Imagine you’re running a paid campaign, and out of the blue, your CPC (Cost Per Click) starts skyrocketing. Or, you suddenly realize your budget is getting smaller by the day, leaving you with limited resources to achieve your goals. 

With Alerts, you’ll be able to proactively monitor your budget and spending to make sure you’re always on track. 

To get started, create a Goal for metrics like Cost for Google Ads or Amount Spent for Facebook Ads. Once you have your Goal set, it’s time to create a new Alert. 

In the Alerts setup, simply select the relevant Goal you created as your metric. Then:

  • Set the condition to Increased By More Than 
  • Type the threshold value that reflects the pace of spending you want to get alerted about.
    • For example, if you wanted to monitor if your budget is being spent too quickly, you can set a threshold of $100 a day. 
  • Determine the time period of the Alert. 

Your Alert should look something like this: Notify me when Cost (Google Ads) Has Increased By More Than $100 In The Period 

  • Once you’ve defined the recipients and delivery options, press Save.

With this Alert, you’ll receive a notification whenever your budget spending exceeds your daily threshold. This way you’ll be able to take the necessary actions to maintain control over your budget and maximize campaign results. 

Tips & Tricks

Quick Tips & Tricks

  1. Duplicate to Save Time ⬇️

    Want to create a bundle of alerts for your metrics at once? If they’re all coming from the same data source, just duplicate an Alert instead of creating them from scratch. Now all you have to do is make a few quick edits, and you have a brand-new alert ready to go.

  2. Enable Or Disable Alerts At The Click Of A Button ⬇️

    Imagine you’re a manager responsible for setting up alerts for your team members. Once you’ve configured the Alerts to track their performance and progress, you may want to use the toggle switch to quickly disable them for yourself. This can be particularly useful when you don’t need to receive the same alerts as your team members or when you want to minimize distractions.

  3. Create SOPs for Next Steps ⬇️

    To create a culture of ownership, document your processes for investigating an alert including steps you would take to make improvements, whether those include dashboards to review, reports to create, or one-off meetings to hold. This will ensure the work will get done even if you go on vacation, get promoted, or move departments.

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