Higher Logic retains activity data for reporting for a limited time (a "data-retention period") for:

• Higher Logic Thrive Marketing Professional (Thrive Marketing Professional) and
• Higher Logic Thrive Marketing Enterprise (Thrive Marketing Enterprise).

The information in this article is relevant to both products, except as noted.

Data retention period for Mailing/Message data

Mailing and message activity data are sends, opens, and clicks, and each of these has a data-retention period.

The data-retention periods are unique to each mailing/message and start on its send date.

NOTE: The data-retention periods are considered rolling windows, which means: activity data are removed and are no longer included in reporting when they are older than the length of each respective retention period.

• Sends data are retained for 13 months
• Opens data are retained for 18 months
• Clicks data are retained for 18 months

So, the data-retention periods can really affect what is included in activity-tracking reports—especially in the performance data for messages that were sent more than a year ago, as described in the next section.

Data retention affect on report data

As message- and mailing-related data get deleted, there is an obvious affect on your report results, and this is especially applicable as messages "age." Consider:

• In viewing report data for a message that was sent more than 13 months ago, the Send data is no longer available to be included in the reporting, but the Opens and Clicks activity data will still be included because (with their 18-month retention periods) they have not been "aged out."

This can lead to report combinations that are slightly confusing, such as a report that has:

• No message Sends but a non-zero Opens count. This is because the Send data have aged out, but the Opens data are still within their data-retention period.
• Click totals that appear inconsistent in different tracking areas. This could be the case when comparing views where some underlying data (e.g., Sends data) have aged out but others (e.g., Clicks data) have not.

EXAMPLE: A customer reviewing annual event email messages over multiple years sees "none sent," "4100 opened," and click totals that differ by report area. This type of discrepancy can occur when older tracking data is no longer included in reports due to its expired data-retention period—especially the 13-month data-retention period for Sends.

Campaign messages data

The Sends, Opens, and Clicks data of messages that are sent as part of a campaign are subject to the same data-retention periods that are documented above.

NOTE: Campaign metrics are not subject to the data-retention policy; these data are not deleted.

Campaign reporting articles

To learn about Campaign reporting in:

• Thrive Marketing Professional, see Campaign Reports.
• Thrive Marketing Enterprise, see Campaign Tracking Reports.

Data retention period for Web Tracking data

Website-based activity data are collected for Thrive Marketing Professional web tracking and Thrive Marketing Enterprise web tracking.

• Web Tracking data are retained for 12 months

Thrive Marketing Professional - Mailing Activity Report drilldown

In Thrive Marketing Professional, the ability to drill down to an individual contact via the Mailing Activity Report is available for 90 days after a message has been sent.

This "drilldown" includes every date and time that the contact opened that mailing/message, during that 90-day period.

After 90 days, the data indicates that an Open occurred, but there isn't any date and time information.

Thrive Marketing Professional - Target Groups Automatic Cleanup

A default practice for Target Groups is to remove unused Groups after 13 months of inactivity. A Group's "inactivity" is determined by its direct use and indirect use.

• Direct use - Target Group A has not been used as the recipient list for a single mailing/message
• Indirect use - Target Group A has not been part of a compound Target Group for a single mailing/message

NOTE: While you can manage your automatic Target Group cleanup settings (see Target Group Automatic Cleanup), Higher Logic's recommended best practices are to leave the default settings in place and to remove Target Groups that are unused for 13 months. This prevents unnecessary Target Groups clogging up your account and streamlines Target Group management for you.