# Comparing periods and trends

> Compare any date range against the previous period, the previous year or a custom window, and see where change badges and dashed comparison lines appear.

Source: https://help.tryordinary.com/features/trends

---

To answer "are things up or down lately, and by how much?", turn on
**Compare** in the date picker in the top bar. Comparison is one
app-wide setting, so every report follows it — there's no separate
trends page to open.


## Choosing what to compare against

The **Compare** setting has four modes:

- **Off** — reports show the selected dates only.
- **Previous period** — a window of the same length just before the
  one you picked.
- **Previous year** — the same window one year earlier.
- **Custom** — place the comparison window yourself on the calendar.

**Match weekdays** (on by default) shifts the comparison window in
whole weeks, so Mondays compare to Mondays and a weekend dip in one
window doesn't distort the change. See
[Report date windows](https://help.tryordinary.com/reference/date-windows) for the exact
rules.

## Where comparisons show up

- **Brand Pulse Overview cards** — Revenue, Orders, Conversion Rate,
  Meta Spend, Google Spend and Net Cash In each get a green or red %
  change badge and a dashed line for the comparison window, drawn on
  the same scale so the two are directly comparable.
- **Marketing Mix** — the totals strip (attributed orders, revenue,
  ad spend, blended ROAS, blended AOV) shows the change for each.
- **Campaign and product tables** — a small % change under the
  headline numbers. A dash (—) means the comparison window had nothing
  to compare against.

Spend changes are shown in a neutral colour, since spending more isn't
good or bad on its own.

## Reading the change well

- **Compare like with like.** A 7-day window that starts on a Monday
  against one that starts on a Saturday mixes up weekend effects —
  leave Match weekdays on.
- **Use Previous year for seasonal businesses.** November against
  October is apples-to-oranges for most stores; November against last
  November isn't.
- **Look at the shape, not just the badge.** The dashed line shows
  whether a change came from one spike day or a steady shift. A promo
  spike that reverts looks very different from a baseline that moved.

## Common uses

- **Promo pre/post** — was the promo's lift real, or did it pull
  demand forward from the following week?
- **Ad campaign rollout** — did the new campaign move revenue, or just
  spend?
- **Product launch** — did the new drop raise the baseline, or was it
  a one-day spike?

## What it doesn't model

- **Seasonality** — Ordinary doesn't strip out seasonal patterns.
  Pick the comparison window that makes sense for your business.
- **Attribution** — the Overview cards are store-wide. For per-channel
  changes, use Marketing Mix with Compare on. See
  [Attribution reports](https://help.tryordinary.com/features/attribution).

## Related articles

- [Brand Pulse — reading your home page](https://help.tryordinary.com/features/dashboard)
- [Report date windows](https://help.tryordinary.com/reference/date-windows)
- [Attribution reports](https://help.tryordinary.com/features/attribution)