Annotations
Record the events that explain your figures, such as a promotion or an outage, and show them on the charts of your reports.
An annotation is a dated note. It marks an event that may have moved your figures that day, for example a promotion launch, a newsletter send, a stock-out, a site outage or a TV appearance.
Once created, the annotation can show on the charts of your reports as a vertical line at its date. When you come across a spike or a dip three months later, the reason is written on the chart.
Annotations are shared by the whole organization. What a colleague records, everyone sees.
Open the Annotations page
In the sidebar, open the Tools group, then Annotations. The page lists every annotation in the organization, with the total count below the title.
As long as no annotation exists, the page shows No annotations and a button to create the first one.
Create an annotation
Open the creation window
Click New annotation.
Give it a title
In Title, write a short name that reads at a glance, for example "Summer sale launch" or "Back to school newsletter". This title is what shows on hover on the charts.
Pick the date
In Date, open the calendar and click the day of the event. For an event that lasts several days, such as a sale, create one annotation for the first day and another for the last.
Add a description if needed
Description (optional) holds useful details, for example the promo code used, the channel or the budget spent.
Pick a color
In Color, click one of the eight swatches. Give events of the same kind the same color, for example green for promotions and red for incidents. Your charts become easier to read.
Save
Click Create. The Annotation created message confirms it.
Show annotations on charts
Annotations are hidden on charts by default, to keep them uncluttered. To show them, use the flag-shaped button at the top right of the page.
Open a report with a chart
The button is available on the Dashboard, on the reports of the E-commerce, Google Analytics, Search Console, Google Ads, Meta Ads, TikTok Ads and ChatGPT Ads sections, and on the Goals page, where annotations show on a goal's progress chart.
Click the flag
In the header toolbar, click the flag button. Its tooltip reads Show annotations. The button stays highlighted while annotations are visible.
Read an annotation
Each annotation shows as a dotted vertical line in its color, topped with a dot. Hover the dot to read the title.
To hide them again, click the same button, whose tooltip then reads Hide annotations. The setting holds while you browse Fullmetrix. It goes back to hidden when you reload the page.
The flag button does not show
The button only appears if the organization has at least one annotation. Create one on the Annotations page, then go back to the report.
An annotation only shows if its date is a point on the chart axis. It therefore stays hidden when the chart groups data by week or month, or when its date falls outside the selected period. Choose a daily grouping and a period that contains the date to see it. To set the period, read Date range and comparison. The other header tools, such as TV mode and the trend line, are covered in Charts and TV mode.
Find, edit and delete
The Search... field filters the list. Click the Title or Date header to sort the list, then click again to reverse the order.
To edit an annotation, click the pencil icon, Edit, in the Actions column. The Edit annotation window has the same fields. Click Save to confirm.
To delete an annotation, click the bin icon, Delete. Deletion is immediate, with no confirmation step, and the annotation also disappears from the whole team's charts.
Event ideas worth recording
| Type of event | Example title |
|---|---|
| Promotion or sale | Winter sale starts |
| Email or SMS campaign | Black Friday newsletter |
| Product launch | New collection release |
| Price change | Organic range price increase |
| Ad campaign | Back to school Meta campaign launch |
| Incident | Payments down for 3 hours |
| Outside event | Featured in a TV report |
| Site change | New checkout flow |