How do I choose how sensitive Alert Agent alerts are?
Pick Relaxed, Balanced or Sensitive, or set your own rules under Advanced, to decide how big a ROAS move must be before Alert Agent emails you.
Where to find the settings
The same settings open from two places. A change in one place shows in the other.
- On the Reports page, click the gear in the header of the Alert Agent column. Its tooltip reads Alert Agent settings. A window titled Alert Agent opens. The column only shows once Alert Agent has emailed an alert for your store.
- On the Your Agents page, click the gear on the Alert Agent card. Its tooltip reads Alert settings. See What is the Your Agents page and what can I do there?.
In either place, scroll to How sensitive should alerts be? (Choose how big a change has to be before we email you).
Pick a level
- Click one of the three cards.
- Read the line under the cards. It sums up your choice in one sentence.
- Click Save at the bottom. You see Alert settings saved.
| Card | Text on the card | Line under the cards |
|---|---|---|
| Relaxed | Only the biggest swings. Fewest emails. | You'll only be emailed about dramatic ROAS swings, the rare, big ones. |
| Balanced, marked Recommended | A good mix for most stores. Some emails. | You'll be emailed about clear, meaningful ROAS moves, not every little wobble. |
| Sensitive | Catch smaller moves too. Most emails. | You'll be emailed about smaller ROAS moves too, so expect more emails. |
Every store starts on Balanced until someone saves another choice.
Set your own rules
- Click Advanced (optional) under the cards. It opens by itself when your saved rules do not match any of the three levels.
- Move the sliders described in the table below.
- Click Save.
As soon as your rules differ from all three levels, no card is selected and the line under the cards reads Custom. You've fine-tuned the rules below. Clicking a card again replaces your own rules with that level and folds Advanced (optional) away.
| Slider | What it sets | Choices | Relaxed | Balanced | Sensitive |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Compared to 7-day average (vs the average of the previous 7 days) | How much yesterday's ROAS must differ from the ROAS of the 7 days before | 5% to 100%, in steps of 5% | 50% | 30% | 15% |
| Week over week (vs the same day last week) | How much it must differ from the same weekday last week | 5% to 100%, in steps of 5% | 50% | 30% | 15% |
| Year over year (vs the same day last year) | How much it must differ from the same day last year | 5% to 100%, in steps of 5% | 75% | 50% | 30% |
| How sure before we email (How many checks must agree. The 7-day check always counts.) | How many of the three checks must count | 1 of 3, 2 of 3, 3 of 3 | 3 of 3 | 2 of 3 | 1 of 3 |
| Ignore normal day-to-day noise (Higher = ignores more of your usual ups and downs.) | How unusual yesterday must be compared with your normal daily swings | Low, Low–Mid, Medium, Mid–High, High | High | Medium | Low |
Reset to recommended puts the Balanced rules back. Click Save to keep them. The button is greyed out when your rules already are Balanced.
How Alert Agent uses these rules
Attribution is how TrueROAS decides which ad gets the credit for a sale. Alert Agent looks at yesterday's ROAS of your Meta Ads and Google Ads together: their combined spend against the sales TrueROAS credited to those ads. It then runs three checks. A rise counts as much as a drop.
- The 7-day check counts when two things are true. Yesterday's ROAS differs from the ROAS of the 7 days before, all 7 days taken together, by at least the Compared to 7-day average percentage. And the move is bigger than your usual ups and downs over those 7 days. Ignore normal day-to-day noise sets how much bigger: 1 times your usual daily swing at Low, 1.5 times at Low–Mid, 2 times at Medium, 2.5 times at Mid–High and 3 times at High.
- The week over week check counts when the change against the same weekday last week reaches the Week over week percentage.
- The year over year check counts when the change against the same day last year reaches the Year over year percentage.
An email is only due when the 7-day check counts and at least as many checks count as How sure before we email asks for. With 1 of 3 the 7-day check alone is enough, with 2 of 3 it needs one of the other two as well, and with 3 of 3 all three must count.
Even then, Alert Agent makes the final call and can hold an email back or send one for a smaller move, as explained in Why didn't Alert Agent email me when my ROAS changed?.
Good to know
- These settings apply to the whole store. Only the store owner or an admin can change them. For everyone else the cards, the sliders and the email list are greyed out.
- Save reads Saving... while it saves. The same button also saves the people under Who gets these emails. If saving fails you see Error saving settings. Please try again.
- Closing the window or leaving the page without clicking Save throws your changes away.
- Whatever your rules, a day with no ROAS to judge never gets an alert, as explained in Why didn't Alert Agent email me when my ROAS changed?.
- The week over week and year over year checks only count when that earlier day had a ROAS above 0. If you did not advertise on the same day last year, 3 of 3, which Relaxed uses, cannot be met for that day.
- The 7-day check needs ad spend and credited sales in the 7 days before, so it cannot count while you are just starting to advertise.
- You cannot set different rules per ad platform or per campaign, or get alerts about spend or sales instead of ROAS.