Foundation · 3 min
What you need to know
Why doesn’t my analytics data match my orders?
Analytics and orders differ because of scope, time zone, consent, duplicates, missing events, tests, cancellations, refunds and attribution. Reconcile transaction IDs before comparing total revenue.
Why is revenue increasing but profit falling?
Revenue can rise while profit falls when discounts, low-margin product mix, advertising, shipping, payment, returns or service costs increase faster. Compare net sales and contribution bridges to find the gap.
Why is traffic increasing but conversion falling?
Traffic can grow faster than qualified demand, shifting toward low-intent sources, devices or locations. Check bots, source mix, landing pages and funnel steps to identify where intent deteriorates.
Why is conversion increasing but AOV falling?
Conversion can improve among smaller or lower-value baskets while price, units or premium-product mix declines. Separate customer, product and promotion mix from funnel performance to understand the cause.
Why is AOV increasing but order volume falling?
AOV can rise because fewer low-value orders occur, prices increase or customers consolidate purchases while total order demand falls. Compare traffic, conversion, order distribution and total contribution.
Why are some products getting views but no sales?
Products may be interesting but unavailable, overpriced, unclear, incompatible, slow to deliver or aimed at research visitors. Review view-to-cart, variant selection, stock and source by item.
Why are customers searching but not purchasing?
Searchers may receive no results, irrelevant ranking, unavailable products, poor filters or unexpected price and delivery options. Analyze query reformulation, selections, exits and inventory.
Why are repeat customers declining?
Repeat customers may decline because cohort quality, first-order experience, product need, delivery, service or follow-up changed, or identity matching failed. Compare equal-age cohorts.
Why are returns increasing?
Returns may rise from product, fit, description, packaging, fulfillment, customer mix, promotion or policy changes. Use return reasons together with product and order cohorts.
Why are my marketing reports inconsistent?
Marketing reports differ because platforms use different identities, windows, time zones, models, conversion definitions and deduplication. Reconcile to store transactions and document each system’s purpose.
Why did a metric suddenly spike or drop?
A spike or drop may reflect real demand, promotion, outage, bot traffic, duplicate or missing events, definition changes or reporting delay. Check raw counts, transaction IDs and deployment history before acting.
How do I perform an ecommerce analytics audit?
Audit business definitions, event design, transaction IDs, item data, consent effects, filters, bots, internal and test traffic, refunds, reconciliation, attribution, dashboards, access and change control. Rank findings by decision risk and customer or financial impact.
A quick store check
Audit definitions, collection, transaction IDs, consent effects, filters, reconciliation, attribution, dashboards and access in that order.
Foundation · 2 min
Frequently asked questions
Should an analytics audit begin inside the dashboard?
No. Begin with business definitions and source transactions, then trace collection and reporting to the dashboard from there.
Who should approve metric-definition changes?
Assign an accountable owner and record the effective date so every report and historical comparison can be updated consistently.