Understanding Alerts & Insights
Last updated: October 30, 2026
Alerts and Insights notify you when your key metrics change, so you don't have to check your dashboards for every movement.
Alerts and Insights compared
Alerts | Insights | |
|---|---|---|
What they do | Notify you when a metric you choose crosses a threshold you set | Explain the likely cause when Polar detects a meaningful change in CAC or Total Sales |
Customizable | Yes: metric, frequency, date range, threshold, filters and recipients | No |
Delivered by | Email, Slack, or both | Email or Slack |
Create an Alert
Go to the Alerts page.
Choose the metric you want to watch. You can search the list.
Choose how often to check it: daily or hourly.
Choose the date range to calculate the metric over, as a number of days, weeks, months, quarters or years.
Choose an absolute or relative threshold (see the table below).
Set the trigger: above, below, or either above or below your threshold.
Optional: apply a View to filter the data the Alert uses. See Understanding Views.
Choose email, Slack or both, and add any other recipients.
Save the Alert.
Threshold type | Triggers when | Example |
|---|---|---|
Absolute | The metric goes above or below a fixed number | Ad Spend goes above $10,000, or ROAS drops below 2 |
Relative | The metric moves by a percentage compared with the previous period | Ad Spend increases by 30%, or ROAS decreases by 10% |
To edit or delete an Alert, open it from the same Alerts page.
Insights
Insights look for meaningful changes in CAC and Total Sales and tell you the likely cause. You can't customize which metrics they cover.
FAQs
Can I get Alerts in Slack?
Yes. Choose Slack, or email and Slack, as the delivery method when you create or edit the Alert.
Can an Alert watch only part of my data?
Yes. Apply a View when you create the Alert, for example to watch one store or one country. See Understanding Views.
What's the difference between Alerts and Automations?
Alerts send a message only when a metric crosses your threshold. Automations send tables or dashboard blocks on a schedule, whether or not anything changed. See Understanding Automations.