The reason to collect and analyze metrics is to help make a decision.
No decision, no point in collecting metrics.
Sometimes you'll want to collect metrics ahead of time though. That way when you're ready to make a decision, you have enough historical data to support you.
That's why every website installs Google Analytics or a similar traffic tracker. In the early days you don't have many options for decision-making but 5 years down the line, having 5 years of data accumulated becomes valuable.
That's how Repeat Customer Insights is able to create historic reports for your store even if you just installed today. Shopify saves a bunch of order, customer, and product data just as part of its normal operations. So when Repeat Customer Insights gets installed it can go back through all of that data to analyze it and pull out recommendations for you.
All that historic data ends helping the analysis and supporting the decision making that you make in the present.
Because that's the point of it all. The decisions you're making now and in the future need a complete view.
Eric Davis
Refine your automated marketing campaigns with better timing
When building any automated marketing campaign that sends messages over time, you need to know how long the campaign should be and how long to delay the messages. The Customer Purchase Latency metrics calculated by Repeat Customer Insights can help you figure out that timing.