> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.relevant-digital.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.relevant-digital.com/getting-started/what-is-the-difference-between-hb-analytics-and-ad-revenue-insights.md).

# What is the Difference Between HB Analytics and Ad Revenue Insights?

**HB Analytics (HBA)** shows you what happened in your header bidding auction, in near real time — the calls your site made and what came back. **Ad Revenue Insights (ARI)** shows you what your SSPs and ad server confirmed as valid, reconciled revenue, once a day. Use HBA to catch and debug problems as they happen; use ARI to trust the numbers for reporting and forecasting.

### Quick comparison

|                      | HB Analytics                                               | Ad Revenue Insights                                           |
| -------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Data source**      | Your site's own header bidding calls                       | SSP and ad server APIs                                        |
| **Update frequency** | Near real-time (\~3 second delay)                          | Once daily                                                    |
| **What it measures** | Raw calls, bid responses, response/render times            | Reconciled, validated revenue                                 |
| **Granularity**      | Site, placement, bidder — call-level                       | Advertiser, buyer, campaign — platform-level                  |
| **Best for**         | Technical monitoring, alerting, validating a config change | Revenue forecasting, financial reporting, commercial analysis |
| **Works with**       | HB Manager, or any other header bidding wrapper            | The Relevant Yield platform                                   |

### Why the two won't always agree — and that's useful

HBA logs every bid your site's calls actually returned. ARI reports what the SSP and ad server later confirmed as valid revenue, after their own reconciliation. Some of what HBA logged gets filtered out along the way — so the two datasets are expected to diverge, not just measurement noise.

That gap is itself useful: comparing HBA's call-level numbers against ARI's reconciled ones is how you spot rejected traffic and potential revenue leakage — if HBA shows meaningfully more bid activity than ARI ends up crediting, that difference is worth investigating.

### Which one do I actually open?

| Question                                                              | Go to                                                     |
| --------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------- |
| Did a bidder's activity just drop?                                    | **HBA**                                                   |
| I changed a timeout/config — did it help?                             | **HBA**                                                   |
| What did we actually earn from this bidder last month?                | **ARI**                                                   |
| My SSP's own dashboard shows different revenue than I expected — why? | **Both** — the gap is the rejected/filtered traffic above |
| I need numbers for a forecast or a finance report                     | **ARI**                                                   |

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