Part 3. Measure, then multiply

9 Read your numbers without fooling yourself

What shown, accepted and attributed revenue really mean, what a decent acceptance rate looks like, and the trap in the word shown.

Contents 9. Read your numbers

The stats page answers one question: which offers are worth keeping. Everything else is decoration.

Three figures per offer

Shown. How many times the offer was served.

Accepted. How many times a buyer took it.

Revenue. What those acceptances added, at the price actually charged after the discount.

Accepted divided by shown is your acceptance rate, and it is the number to optimise. Revenue tells you whether the rate is worth anything: a 30 percent rate on a five euro item can matter less than a 6 percent rate on something worth eighty.

The results page showing revenue earned, buyers who said yes, acceptance rate and average added per order.
Rate tells you what to fix. Revenue tells you what to fix first.

What counts as good

We will not hand you an industry benchmark, because the honest answer is that it depends on your catalogue and your price ratio, and a made-up number would just make you feel bad or comfortable for no reason.

Compare against yourself instead. Your first offer sets the baseline. Everything after that is better or worse than it. That comparison is real, and it is the only one you can act on.

Bring back the eligibility figure from chapter 2 when you do it. An offer that reached 40 percent of your orders and was accepted by one in eight of the buyers who saw it is performing well, even though it touched a small slice of your total revenue.

The trap in the word shown

Shown means our server sent the offer, not that a human looked at it. Shopify loads the one-click page in advance, before it knows whether the buyer's payment method even allows it. So a small gap between shown and what a buyer really saw is normal. When you want the truth about what reached people, look at acceptances and revenue, which only exist when somebody actually acted.

Reading a single funnel

Each funnel has its own page, which shows the tree with the figures attached to each node. This is where the decline branch you built in chapter 6 proves itself or does not.

Per-step figures for one funnel, with drop-off marked on each branch.
Per branch, not per funnel. This is how you find out whether the downsell is worth its screen.

What you should have now

One offer you have decided to cut or replace, chosen from the numbers rather than from taste. That decision is the whole point of the page.

Last updated