Reading your numbers: revenue, traffic and email
The five places to read your numbers — business, the sales report, traffic, email performance and the mail log — what each answers and which number actually matters.
There are five places to read numbers in the dashboard, each answering a different question. Working out which one answers your question beats staring at all of them.
| What you want to know | Where to look |
|---|---|
| How much did I make, and which course sells | Overview → Analytics → Business metrics |
| What I actually earn on physical products after cost | Shop → Sales analytics |
| How many people came, and from where | Analytics → Traffic stats |
| Is anyone reading my emails | Email & newsletters → Email performance |
| Did that one email actually go out | Email & newsletters → Email log |
Read your numbers, step by step
Step 1: Business metrics — revenue, orders and top sellers
In the left menu, click "Overview → Analytics". Pick the last 7 / 30 / 90 days at the top; the "💰 Business metrics" tab is open by default.
Step 2: Sales analytics — what physical products actually earn
In the left menu, click "Shop → Sales analytics". Pick a range (today through the last 12 months, or custom dates) to see net sales, cost of goods, gross profit and orders. Top right: "Export to Excel".
Step 3: Traffic stats — how many people came, and from where
Back on "Analytics", switch to the "📊 Traffic stats" tab: page views, unique visitors, who's online now, plus daily charts. Further down: top pages, landing pages, utm sources and campaigns, devices and countries.
Step 4: Email performance — is anyone reading
In the left menu, click "Email & newsletters → Email performance": total sent, open rate and click rate on top, then one table per sequence and one per newsletter.
Step 5: Email log — did that one email go out
In the left menu, click "Email & newsletters → Email log". Filter by status (all / success / failed), date range or recipient and subject; each record can be viewed and resent. On the right, set how many days records are kept.
The sections below explain how to read each of these.
Business numbers
The date range at the top switches between the last 7 / 30 / 90 days.
The four tiles on top are all-time totals (revenue, orders, students, average order value) and ignore the date range — they answer "how is this site doing overall".
The three figures beside the revenue chart are the range numbers (revenue, orders, new members) and do follow your selection.
Three leaderboards below:
- Top courses by revenue — not by units. Selling a lot isn't the same as earning a lot
- Top products by revenue
- Top posts by views — which content is actually bringing people in
Everything is computed live from your own orders, not refreshed overnight.
The number to look at first
Average order value. It's the easiest to move and the most often ignored: add a premium tier, bundle two things, or drop the cheapest option and it changes — without needing a single extra visitor.
Sales analytics (essential if you sell physical products)
Shop → Sales analytics. The business page above shows revenue; this one shows gross profit — and with physical products those two numbers can be very far apart.
Only paid product orders count (refunded ones don't), and dates follow your site's timezone. Pick today, this week, this month, last month, the last 3 months, the last 12 months, or a custom range.
| Number | How it's calculated |
|---|---|
| Net sales | Product value − discounts |
| Cost of goods | The cost as it was when the order was placed |
| Gross profit | Net sales − cost of goods |
| Shipping income | Listed separately and excluded from gross profit |
| Collected | Including shipping, after discounts — the money that actually arrived |
Below that: a daily or monthly sales trend, and a per-product breakdown of units, net sales, cost, profit and margin. Negative profit is shown in red, so a product you're selling at a loss is obvious at a glance. The whole report exports.
🚨 Fill in costs on the products first. Products without a cost are flagged "cost missing" and their profit equals their revenue — a flattering fiction. More importantly, cost is a snapshot taken when the order is placed, so filling it in now only affects future orders — it never corrects orders already placed. For this page to be true, set costs before you start selling.
Traffic
Switch to the 📊 Traffic stats tab on the same page. This is a lightweight self-hosted counter: no Google Analytics, no cookies, which also means ad blockers don't remove it. Expect numbers slightly higher than GA — GA is the one under-counting.
You get visitors, page views, top pages, referrers and devices.
For proper marketing attribution (which ad produced which sale), that's GA4 / Meta Pixel territory → Tracking codes and the SEO check.
Email performance
Email & newsletters → Email performance: sends, opens and clicks for sequences and newsletters.
The three KPIs on top are site-wide totals; below them, one table for sequences and one for newsletters. Click a name to jump straight to that email.
⚠️ Open rates run high by nature — don't make decisions on them. Modern mail clients (Apple Mail especially) pre-load images on the recipient's behalf, which registers as an open even though nobody looked. Click rate is the trustworthy one — that took a deliberate action.
How to read it:
- High opens, low clicks → the subject line works, but the body gives no reason to act
- Low opens → a subject-line problem, or a list that's gone cold
- Both low → first check the mail actually got delivered (next section)
Email log
Email & newsletters → Email log is the ledger of every email the system sent: notifications, order receipts, newsletters.
- Filter by status (delivered / failed), date range, recipient or subject
- View content shows exactly what was sent at the time
- Resend re-delivers it — this is the answer to "I never got my receipt"
- Set a retention period; older records are cleared automatically
When a student says an email never arrived: look for the record here first. Record exists and succeeded → ask them to check spam. No record at all → the problem is the trigger, not the sending. Status failed → read the error; usually a typo in the address or mail setup that isn't finished.
FAQ
Why don't the traffic numbers match Google Analytics? They won't. Ad blockers remove a slice of GA's data; the self-hosted counter isn't affected. Compare trends, not absolute values.
Does revenue include refunds? Refunded orders are excluded. Change an order's status and the figures follow immediately.
Can I export a report? The order list exports. The analytics page is for trends — pull line items from orders.
Do I need a cookie banner for the traffic stats? Not for these — no cookies, no personal tracking. If you add GA4 or Meta Pixel, those are a different matter.