Understand conversation analytics

Use the Conversation analytics icon beside Templates on Inbox → Overview, or open Analytics → Reports & analytics → Conversation analytics to understand who contacts your business, when conversations happen, how your team responds and which business records are linked to those conversations. Reports include only the workspace and inboxes your access permits.

Read the charts

The metric strip shows active conversations, incoming messages, channel identities and linked contacts. These are separate measures and should not be added together.

• Daily activity: compare incoming messages or conversation starts over time.
• Channels: compare the same measure across channels.
• Referrals: compare retained inbound referral evidence by source. These are recorded referrals, not website visitors or completed sales. Staff-excluded and expired evidence is omitted from the bars; excluded referrals are counted separately. See Understand recorded conversation referrals.
• Response time: compare first-reply times for your team and automation. Median means half of measured replies arrived within that time; the other bar shows when 90% had arrived. Times without enough evidence are omitted.
• Replies: see how many eligible conversations received a team or automated first reply. A conversation may have both, so these bars do not add up to unique conversations. Missing a team reply does not mean the conversation received no help.
• Orders & bookings: see completed orders and confirmed bookings linked to conversations, shown in their current status. Areas outside your access or plan are omitted, not counted as zero. This does not measure payment or prove that a conversation caused the result.

Use the Busiest hours chart below to compare hourly demand. Choose Day to show one weekday or all days, and Show to switch between incoming messages and conversation starts. Choose Explore conversations, then an Hour, to open matching conversations. Use Back to inbox to return from Inbox analytics.

Choose a period and channel. The report uses your business's opening-hours time zone. Custom dates uses the start date and excludes the end date: to include the whole of 21 October, use 22 October as the end date. You can report on up to 90 days. Choose Apply dates to update the report; editing dates keeps the last applied report visible. Today's figures cover the time elapsed so far.

When you enter Analytics from a particular inbox or connected source, that context limits the report too. Export CSV downloads the figures and the reporting interval currently displayed. See Find your busiest conversation hours.

Different numbers describe different groups

A channel identity is an identity that sent a message, counted within its channel and connected account. The same person on WhatsApp and Instagram can count twice. Identified contacts are linked business contacts that sent a message; they overlap with channel identities and should not be added to them. A conversation can be counted even when it has no linked contact. Missing account or identity information is shown as incomplete coverage.

Website visitors and website sessions describe website activity, including people who never open chat. Those figures belong to website or Storefront reporting. Conversation analytics cannot show everyone who viewed your website or social profile.

This report does not currently classify returning customers. A recurring browser, a repeated channel identity and an established customer are different things. Customer history must support that distinction before it can appear here.

Starts and activity are different

A conversation started before the selected period can still receive messages during it. It contributes to active conversations and incoming messages, but not conversation starts. System notices, cleared messages and unsuccessful or queued outbound replies are excluded from the new activity report.

What an unavailable figure means

Not available does not mean zero. Some history may have expired or been cleared, some collection may not have existed, or your access or plan may not include the relevant area. These figures describe retained records; they cannot reconstruct missing activity.

If the report could not load, use Try again. If it still does not load, contact your workspace administrator. If an inbox is missing, ask an administrator to check your access; do not assume it has no activity.

For timing and business-result definitions, see Read a conversation report.