Understanding Trigger Timing: History Period and Latency Period

This article will help you understand:

What the history period and latency period are
How the two periods work together
The 60-day total period limit
Which triggers use this timing model
How to configure the periods for your use case

🔍 Note: before you get started, it's essential to understand that Raptor isn't an e-mail marketing system, meaning it doesn't send e-mails directly. Instead, Raptor integrates with your chosen e-mail marketing provider, allowing you to utilize all of Raptor's functionalities alongside the features in your e-mail marketing system.

Which triggers use this timing model?

The history and latency period model applies to all event-based triggers — triggers that activate in response to a specific product event, such as a price change or a product returning to stock. This covers:

Price Drop Product Interest Trigger
Price Drop Favorites Trigger
Price Drop Basket Trigger
Back on Stock Product Interest Trigger
Back on Stock Favorites Trigger

👀 Use case: Interest-based triggers (Category Interest, Product Interest, Abandoned Basket, Abandoned Favorites) use a simpler single lookback period and are not covered by this article.

The two periods explained

Event-based triggers divide time into two distinct phases relative to the triggering event (e.g., a price drop or a product returning to stock).

History period (lookback period)

The history period is the window of time before the triggering event. During this period, Raptor searches for users who have shown qualifying behavior — for example, visiting a product page a set number of times, or having the product on their favorites list.

The longer the history period, the more users will qualify, because Raptor looks further back into each user's interaction history.

💡 Example: With a history period of 30 days, Raptor identifies all users who visited a product within the 30 days leading up to the price drop.

Latency period (waiting period)

The latency period is the window of time after the triggering event, before the email is triggered. This is the delay between the moment the event occurs (e.g., the price drops) and the moment the email is sent.

💡 Example: With a latency period of 2 hours, Raptor waits 2 hours after the price drop before sending the notification. This allows time for the price change to propagate fully across your product feed before users receive the email.

How the two periods work together

The timeline looks like this:

|← History period →|  EVENT  |← Latency period →| Email triggered

Raptor first looks back across the history period to find users with qualifying behavior. It then waits out the latency period before sending. This means a user must have shown qualifying behavior before the event — and must still meet the qualification conditions at the time the email is triggered (for example, the product must still be in stock, and the user must not have already purchased it).

💡 Example: A price drop occurs at midnight. The history period is set to 30 days, so Raptor identifies users who visited the product in the past 30 days. The latency period is set to 9 hours, so the email is triggered at 9:00 AM — reaching users at a time when they are likely to check their email, while the discounted price is still active.

The 60-day total period limit

⚠️ Important: The combined total of the history period and the latency period cannot exceed 60 days. If you increase one, you must reduce the other accordingly.

💡Example: If your history period is 58 days, your latency period can be no longer than 2 days.

This limit applies to all triggers that use the history/latency timing model.

Price drop triggers: OnSalePrice vs. OriginalPrice

⚠️ Important: Price drop triggers only activate when the OnSalePrice of a product changes. A change to the OriginalPrice alone will not activate a price drop trigger.

Make sure your product catalog is configured to send OnSalePrice correctly, so that price reductions are detected as expected.

Configuration guidance

When deciding how to set your history and latency periods, consider the following:

History period controls how many users qualify. A longer history period casts a wider net, but may include users whose interest has faded. For price drop and back on stock triggers, Raptor recommends a history period between 30 and 60 days.

Latency period controls the timing of delivery. For price drop triggers, a shorter latency period is generally better — you want to reach users while the product is still discounted and in stock. For back on stock triggers, a short latency period ensures the notification arrives before the product sells out again.

Always ensure that history period + latency period ≤ 60 days.

Get an overview of all Triggers and learn how to send high-converting e-mails to your subscribers.