Choose marketing channels using revenue evidence

The question to answer

A traffic spike is useful only in context. A small community may send a handful of people who understand your offer, while a large audience may mostly browse. Review visitors, payments and acquisition costs together before deciding which channel deserves your next campaign. The dashboard describes recorded activity; it does not prove that a channel caused a purchase.

Before you start

A website with the tracker installed and consent handled.

A working Stripe, Dodo or server-side payment integration for revenue comparisons.

A consistent reporting window and your campaign costs or time estimates.

1. Check that attribution works

Open website settings and review the payment connection. Confirm a real, consented payment has arrived and is matched as expected. A configured integration alone does not establish that all sales are attributed.

2. Choose a fair comparison window

Use the same date range, timezone and currency for every channel. Include enough time for customers to make a decision; yesterday’s launch and a mature search channel may have very different buying delays.

3. Compare the source breakdown

Open Channel and use its sort control to compare revenue with visitor counts. Use Referrer to inspect individual sources. Selecting a row filters the dashboard, which helps you read the underlying goals and journeys in context.

4. Calculate revenue per visitor

Divide the revenue credited to a source by its visitor count for the selected period. Record this alongside total revenue. A ratio based on three visitors is much less reliable than one based on several hundred.

5. Include the cost of repeating it

Record ad spend, sponsorship fees and your own time outside the analytics report. Try one small follow-up campaign on the strongest candidate, with a tagged link, then review the same measures again.

Worked example

The community post has the highest recorded revenue per visitor, while search generated more total revenue. If the paid placement cost £250, its £200 revenue does not cover that acquisition spend, even before operating costs. These are illustrative calculations, not customer results.

Check your setup

The selected dates and currency match across the comparison.

An expected payment appears once, with its source or an explicit unmatched state.

Your decision considers volume, acquisition cost and buying delay.

How to interpret the result

Consent choices, blockers, missing referrers and cross-device purchases leave gaps.

Attributed revenue is neither profit nor incremental revenue caused by a campaign.

Do not increase spend based on one unusually large payment.

Your next action

Choose one channel to repeat and one change to test. Keep the period and success measure written down so the next review answers the same question.