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Ask Data chat a question
Data chat answers questions about your connected ad data in plain English. You need at least one connection first.
Before you start
- Who can do this
- Anyone at your agency
- You need
- At least one connection in Integrations, with its accounts assigned to clients. Until your agency has one, Data chat shows “Get Started with Talk to Your Data” instead.
- Where in Orbit
- Sidebar › Workspace › Data chat
Steps
Tick a step’s number when it’s done. We’ll remember where you were.
In the sidebar, open Data chat.
Pick a prompt under Suggested, or type your own question.
Press Ask. The answer appears in the thread.
To start over, press New beside Recent threads.
When it worked
Your answer appears under “Orbit · answered”, often with a table, and with a chart when the table has numbers.
If something goes wrong
Data chat shows “Get Started with Talk to Your Data” instead of the chat.
Your agency has no connections yet. An Owner or Admin can press Add Connection, then assign its accounts in Account Mapping.
Data chat says no active data connections were found.
None of your agency’s connections is working. Open Integrations, check each connection, and reauthenticate or add one.
Orbit showsI couldn't complete that request. Ask again — one part at a time if it was a multi-part question — and I'll retry.
Ask again. If your question had several parts, ask them one at a time.
Orbit showsI don't have any performance data for that period.
The period may be before the client’s data starts. Check the dates, then check the client’s accounts are assigned in Account Mapping.
Data chat says you’ve reached the rate limit.
Each person can ask 30 questions an hour and 150 in 24 hours. Wait, and questions free up as older ones age out.
How it works
Explainer: What Data chat can answer, and where answers come from
Data chat answers from the same synced performance data as your clients’ reports. Questions about your setup come from Orbit’s own records, and a few kinds of question need the platform itself.
| You ask about | Data chat answers from |
|---|---|
| Spend, clicks, conversions, revenue and other results | Orbit’s synced performance data, the same data as performance reports. |
| Your setup: clients, connections, mapped accounts, sync status | Orbit’s own records, counted directly. |
| “Why” follow-ups about an earlier answer | Only the numbers already shown in the conversation. |
| Today’s numbers | The platform directly, where it can be queried. Otherwise complete days only. |
| Age, gender, device, placement, location, keyword or hour | The platform directly, where it can be queried. Otherwise it says it can’t. |
| HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack, Google Drive, monday.com or BigQuery | That source directly, since its data isn’t stored with your ad results. |
| Something it can’t pin down | It asks you what you meant, with options to pick. |
- Results can be split by date, platform, channel, account, campaign, ad group or ad set, creative and client.
- Metrics are spend, impressions, clicks, conversions, revenue, leads and purchases. CTR, CPC, CPM, CPA and ROAS are worked out from the summed totals.
- If the synced data has nothing for your period, Data chat says so. It never fills the gap with numbers from the platform, so it stays in line with the report.
- Answers are read-only. Data chat never changes anything on a platform.
Explainer: Which dates an answer covers
If you don’t name a period, Data chat uses the last 30 days. Every period ends at the last complete day, which is yesterday in UTC, because platforms are still adding to today’s numbers.
| You ask for | What it covers |
|---|---|
| No period | The last 30 days, ending yesterday. |
| “Last 7 days”, “last 30 days” or “last 90 days” | Those days, ending yesterday: the same windows as the performance report. |
| “This month” or “month to date” | The start of this month to yesterday. |
| “Last month” | The previous calendar month. |
| Dates, such as “March 1 to March 15” | Exactly those dates, up to yesterday. |
| More than 365 days | The most recent 365 days of the range you asked for. |
| “Today” or “right now” | Live numbers where the platform can be queried directly. Otherwise complete days only, with a note. |
- Follow-ups such as “break that down by campaign” keep the period from your previous question.
Prevention: Get accurate answers from Data chat
Name the client, the metric and the period, and ask one thing at a time. That’s what Data chat needs to pull the right numbers first time.
- Name the client to get that client’s numbers alone, for example “What did Acme spend last month?”.
- Use the standard periods, “last 7 days”, “last 30 days”, “last 90 days” or “month to date”, when you want to match the performance report exactly.
- Use platform names as they appear in your data. If a name doesn’t match, the reply lists the ones that do.
- Ask multi-part questions one part at a time. If an answer fails part-way, ask again in parts.
- Ask for breakdowns by campaign, ad group, creative, platform or channel, which Orbit always stores.
- Press New when you change topic, so earlier questions don’t steer the answer.
- Check numbers you’ll share against the report: “Orbit can make mistakes. Always verify with the underlying report.”
Limits: Data chat’s limits
Each person can ask 30 questions an hour and 150 in 24 hours. Both are rolling windows, so questions free up as older ones age out.
| Limit | Value |
|---|---|
| Questions per person per hour | 30, rolling |
| Questions per person per 24 hours | 150, rolling |
| Clarifying questions and “why” follow-ups | Don’t count toward the limits |
| A question answered from the platform directly | Counts once for each query it runs |
| Longest period in one question | 365 days |
| Conversation memory | The last 20 messages of the thread |
| Threads listed | Your 50 most recent |
- Breakdowns and rankings show the top rows. Ask for a number, such as “top 50 campaigns”, to see more.
- A very long period can be too big to total in time. Data chat then asks you to try a narrower range.