The 8-Channel E-Commerce KPI Framework
Separate your channels so credit lands where it is earned. This is how a six-figure paid-social misread gets caught instead of buried in Direct and Unassigned.
1. The eight channels to separate
- Paid social, paid search, organic, email and SMS, affiliate, display, direct, and cross-domain.
- Report each on its own line. A single Direct or Unassigned bucket hides the channels that actually drive revenue.
2. What to track per channel
- Spend and revenue, plus blended and channel-level ROAS.
- New vs returning customers, so retention is not double-counted as acquisition.
- The events each channel depends on: page view, add to cart, begin checkout, purchase.
3. Attribution checks
- Watch for traffic landing in Direct and Unassigned. A large share is a red flag, not a fact.
- Confirm no configuration tag is paused, which silently breaks events.
- Verify cross-domain tracking across every storefront you run.
- Check for last-click bias inflating one channel past its true contribution.
4. Implementation order
- Fix tracking first, then channel grouping, then the dashboard, then the reporting cadence.
- Stand up reporting before you scale spend, so the numbers are trustworthy when they matter.