Defining metrics is how Improvado is able to show a variety of metrics across a variety of data sources in the same light. You are able to map, set formulas to, and rename metrics like this:

You can also set a type of number (a currency, percentage, etc) to metrics, set a formula to make it a calculated metric, and even combine data source metrics to make a custom metric in your Improvado report.

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Metrics and what to do with it?

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Define metrics button on the top right of the report screen allows you to look through the metrics list and set up a number of metric settings.

The define metrics menu is divided into two main parts: a list of platforms (on the left) and a list of metrics.

The list of metrics consists of three columns:

• the name of the metric
• type of metric
• content (metric or formula)

For any single data source (for example, Google AdWords) there are two variants of metrics: provided by a data source itself and calculated by the formula. You can also disable unnecessary fields by clicking on metric type and changing it to “not used”.

For a dataset, there are also “Aggregation rules” - settings for the summary row in the tables, the values in the graphs throughout the report, etc. For each column, it is configured as the sum of the values for all products or by the formula.

To show metric editing tools move your mouse over the line with the metric you are interested in. The line will be highlighted and the control elements will be displayed on it.

Clicking on the gear icon after the metric name opens the submenu, where you can customize the metric name, format (number / money / percentage / duration) and decide increasing or decreasing numbers define the positive dynamics.

The triangle icon in the second column (after the type of metric) allows you to open a drop-down menu where you can choose whether this metric is directly supplied by the data source or calculated by the formula.

If you select one of the items in the previous menu, or when you click on the last column, the metric editing menu opens, which allows you to choose one of the metrics provided by the data sources (you can choose not one but several metrics and the numbers will be summed).

There is a hint how to write operators in each custom formula input menu.

There is also a button for validation, which gives the first of the values calculated by the formula, so you can check it by comparing it with the expected value.

There are a number of reasons to use Define Metrics menu: First of all, you need to check if your metrics mean the same things you want them to mean.

• For each platform, under the same name, you can mean several different metrics;
• For different platforms, the contents of the same metric sets are different.

For example, under the same “imps”, you can mean one of three different metrics on AdWords and four on Facebook.

Define metrics menu allows you to state what to display and how to bring comparable data from different data sources. “Compare apples to apples,” they say.

The second problem is the need in metrics that should be converted in one way or another. For example, you came up with some sort of your metric, calculated from the typical by cunning formulas. Or even easier - the platform calculates costs in one currency, and you want to prepare a report using another, e.g. to convert USD into euro. For this, you can use metrics, calculated by formulas.

The third reason is a need for creating complex cross-platform metrics, which unites a few data sources.

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