Trace a click to revenue
Follow a short link from the tap through the order and read the channel report honestly.
Owned by Venue Manager · 10 steps · about 14 minutes
Why this exists
Attribution here is deliberately simple and deliberately honest, and knowing exactly how simple it is stops you over-reading the numbers. Every published post gets a tracked short link per platform. When somebody taps it the platform records the click, drops a visitor cookie and an attribution cookie, and redirects them to the tagged destination. When an order is later paid, the attribution cookie is read and, if the click is inside the attribution window, a conversion row is written.
Three consequences follow, and every argument about these reports comes back to one of them. First, last click wins — the redirect overwrites the cookie, so a customer who taps Instagram then X is credited to X. Second, one conversion per order, first write wins, so revenue is never double-counted across channels. Third, the recorded revenue is a gross snapshot at attribution time and refunds do not remove it. A cancelled event does not empty this report, and that is a documented choice, not a bug.
What the report is genuinely good for is comparing channels against each other over the same window: posts sent, links, clicks, unique clicks, orders, revenue and conversion rate, per platform. What it is not good for is a net revenue figure — that lives in the ledger, which is admin-only, and for good reason.
These reports are computed live from the click and conversion tables with no denormalised counters anywhere. There is nothing to rebuild and nothing that can silently drift; a number that looks wrong is a question about the underlying rows, not about a cache.
Before you start
- A venue manager or admin session.
- A published post with tracked links. The seed publishes a three-platform post on demo-event-0001 with simulated clicks.
Practise with
| Persona | Password | Note | |
|---|---|---|---|
| venue_manager | manager@club.test | manager123 | shift lead: implies door_staff, plus intake, sales, guest list, marketing |
| admin | admin@club.test | admin123 | the only account that can touch money, identity and contracts |
Steps 1–7 — Venue Manager
their manual →-
1Open the marketing reports and filter to the event and the date range you care about.Expected result A Channels table with posts sent, links, clicks, unique, orders, revenue and conversion rate, plus a Rule effectiveness table underneath.Watch out for Compare like with like. A channel that only received two posts in the window will have a flattering conversion rate off almost no traffic.
-
2Pull the same figures as data when you need them elsewhere — the endpoint takes the event, a date range, and a CSV format option.Expected result Per-platform rows and a totals row.Watch out for The event's own scoped host can read this too, but only for their own event id. If a promoter asks for the venue-wide numbers, that is a no.
-
3For one night, read the event funnel report and its per-rule breakdown to see whether automated posts or manual ones did the work.Expected result A funnel plus a rule-by-rule breakdown.Watch out for Rule effectiveness compares automated posts against each other. It does not prove causation — a sell-out rule fires because the night was already selling.
-
4List the tracked links to find the short code for a specific post and platform.Expected result Links with their short code, campaign, source platform and the post they belong to.Watch out for The link is stable per post and platform, including across retries. Two codes for what looks like one post usually means two posts.
-
5Tap a short link yourself in a fresh browser to see the customer's path: the click is recorded, cookies are set, and you are redirected to the tagged destination.Expected result A redirect to the event page with the campaign parameters attached.Watch out for Your own tap is a real click in the report. Use a private window and expect to see yourself in the unique-click count.
-
6Close the loop on a real conversion: find the order the report credits and confirm the amount against the recorded revenue.Expected result An order whose gross matches the attributed figure.Watch out for If the order was later refunded the attributed revenue still stands. That is the gross-snapshot rule — the marketing report is not an accounting surface.
-
7Know where the real numbers live and that you cannot reach them. Net revenue, refunds and the double-entry ledger are admin-only. Quote this report as marketing performance, never as takings.Expected result The right report used for the right question.Watch out for The 403 on the ledger is deliberate. If somebody needs a revenue figure for a settlement, that is an admin's number to give, not yours to estimate from clicks.
Steps 8–10 — Admin
their manual →Owns the per-link forensics and the simulators that let you prove the chain end to end.
-
8As an admin, run the single-link forensics when a manager disputes a figure: the link, every click on it, and every conversion attributed to it.Expected result The full chain for one short code.Watch out for Clicks outside the attribution window are recorded but never convert. That gap between clicks and orders is usually the answer to 'why is our conversion rate so low'.
-
9Simulate clicks against a short code when demonstrating or testing the chain, optionally as a repeat visitor.Expected result Click ids you can then attribute an order to.Watch out for Repeat clicks from the same visitor count once as unique and every time as total. That is exactly the distinction the report's two columns exist to show.
-
10Attribute an order to a click through the real attribution path and read the reason it gives back.Expected result Whether a conversion was written, and why not if not.Watch out for The reasons are the whole lesson: unknown click, expired window, duplicate order. Attribution never raises an error — it silently declines, which is why proving it needs this endpoint.