How does Error Percentage differ from Error Ratio?

The Analytics dashboard includes both Error Percentage and Error Ratio metrics. Sometimes these two will differ and you may find, for example, that your Error Percentage is better than the industry insight benchmark but your Error Ratio is worse, or vice versa.

This difference is typically due to the different ways that Error Percentage and Error Ratio are calculated:

• Error Percentage is influenced by the number of sessions in the timespan you select - it divides the number of errors by the number of sessions
• Error Ratio is influenced by the number of hours watched during the timespan you select - it divides the number of errors by the total hours watched

If you see a difference between your Error Percentage and Error Ratio metrics this could be because:

• Your Error Percentage is different depending on the timespan you choose when analysing your data. For example, if you choose a 1 minute timespan there are likely to be many more sessions than errors. If you choose a 4 hour timespan the percentage of errors is likely to be relatively higher compared to the number of sessions. This means you may find your Error Percentage is better than the industry insight when comparing over a short timespan but worse when comparing over a longer time window.
• You have a large number of short sessions for each viewer. In this case your Error Percentage may be low because the number of errors is divided by a large number of sessions. But your Error Ratio may be higher as the total number of hours watched is relatively lower. The inverse of this can also be true - a small number of very long sessions may reduce your Error Percentage but your Error Ratio may stay the same.