Dates and comparisons

Kreel needs one consistent answer to a question like “what does last 7 days mean.” This page covers how date ranges are built, why ad metrics stop at yesterday, and how the Compare To options work, including why a comparison sometimes shows a dash instead of a percentage.

The same rules apply everywhere: the dashboard, the REST API, and MCP tools like get_performance.

Calendar days and your reporting timezone

Every date range in Kreel is a span of whole calendar days in your brand’s reporting timezone, not UTC and not your browser’s timezone. You choose that timezone when creating the brand and can change it in the brand’s settings; while Shopify is connected, the store’s own timezone takes over automatically. Every timestamp-based record (a Shopify order, a Klaviyo email send) is converted into that timezone’s day boundaries before it’s counted.

Date ranges are inclusive on both ends. A “last 7 days” query run on July 20 covers July 13 through July 19: 7 calendar days, not 8, and never including today.

Ad metrics end yesterday

Meta Ads and Google Ads data always ends at yesterday, never today. Both platforms’ own reporting for “today” is still settling, so Kreel only pulls a day in once it’s finished. Check ad performance in the middle of the day and you’ll see numbers current through yesterday, not this morning’s spend.

Shopify and Klaviyo rolling windows follow the same rule: “last 7 days” and “last 30 days” stop at yesterday too, so a range labeled the same way means the same span of days no matter which metric you’re looking at. Month to Date is the exception: since it’s defined as the current month through today, it can already include today’s Shopify and Klaviyo activity so far.

Want today’s activity?

The rolling-day presets (Last 7 days, Last 30 days, Last 90 days) never show today’s partial-day activity - Month to Date already does, since it runs through today by definition. For any other range, use Custom Range and set today as the end date. Ad metrics lag behind regardless of range - Meta and Google don’t finalize a day’s numbers until it’s over, so today’s ad spend won’t show up until tomorrow.

For how often each platform’s underlying data actually refreshes, see Sync and data freshness.

Comparison windows (Compare To)

The dashboard’s date range picker has a Compare To section with three options: Previous Period, Same Period Last Year, and No Comparison. Once a comparison resolves, the picker shows the exact window it landed on (“Comparing against …”) and each metric card shows a small vs {date} - {date} caption, so you can always see what was actually compared, not just the label.

1. Previous Period compares your selected range to the equal-length range right before it. A 7-day window compares to the 7 days before that. The exception is Month to Date: instead of comparing to the trailing days of the previous month, it compares to the same day-span of the previous calendar month (July 1-4 vs. June 1-4, not June 27-30), since month-end days behave too differently to make a useful comparison. If the current month has more days than the previous month, the comparison clamps to the previous month’s last day rather than bleeding into days you’re currently viewing (March 1-31 compares to Feb 1-28).
2. Same Period Last Year compares to the exact same calendar dates one year earlier. This is calendar-aligned, not weekday-aligned, so a Monday can end up compared against what was a Tuesday last year. Feb 29 clamps to Feb 28 in a non-leap comparison year.
3. No Comparison turns off delta and percentage-change rendering entirely. There’s no stale comparison left behind when you pick this.

When a comparison shows a dash

Coverage for a comparison window is all-or-nothing, and it’s checked per data source. If any part of the comparison window falls outside the history Kreel actually has for a given platform, that comparison shows as a dash rather than a percentage computed against zero, which would otherwise render as a meaningless spike like “+400%.”

This is judged per platform, not per brand. Years of Shopify history don’t vouch for a Meta Ads connection you only made last month. Ask for a year-over-year comparison and the Shopify numbers can compare fine while the Meta numbers show a dash, in the same view. For the general dash convention across the dashboard, see How to read the numbers on the Overview page.

Chart overlays aren’t available yet

The Compare To options apply to metric-card deltas. Kreel does not currently draw a comparison line on trend charts. That’s a planned addition, not something you’ll find today.

Comparisons from the API or an agent

get_performance and similar MCP tools take a compare_to_previous flag that adds an equal-length prior-period comparison to the response. It’s the same Previous Period logic described above, scoped to the fields that tool returns. See MCP data tools for the exact parameters and which entity types support it.

Need help?

Email support@kreel.ai.