Why don’t New Customers and Repeat Customers add up to Customers?
Executive Summary
Source Medium counts new and repeat customers irrespective of each other. If a customer placed their acquisition order within the date aggregation (day/week/month etc.), they are counted as a new customer. If a customer places a repeat order within the date, they are counted as a repeat customer. If a customer places both their acquisition order and a repeat order within the date aggregation, they will be counted as 1 new customer and 1 repeat customer.
This definition can result in New Customers + Repeat Customers being higher than the Customers figure when customers place their acquisition and repeat order within the date aggregation.
Example: In May we acquire 100 new customers, and 100 repeat customers -- who acquired in April or earlier -- come back to make another purchase. Assuming none of the customers who were acquired in May place a second order within that month, we'll have the following counts for the month -- customers: 200, New Customers: 100, Repeat Customers: 100 for May. However, let's say 25 of those customers who were acquired in May place a second order before the end of the month. Those customers will now be counted towards Repeat Customers as well as New Customers, resulting in the following counts for the month -- Customers: 200, New Customers: 100, Repeat Customers: 125.
Additional Note: First-time orders which include only gift cards are not counted as new customers by Shopify, but will be counted as new customers by Source Medium.
Module | Uniqueness | Examples |
Executive Summary | Daily | If a customer buys 3 times in 1 day, the customer gets counted once as a New Customer and once as a Repeat Customer for the day.
If a customer buys 3 times over 3 days, the customer gets counted once as New Customer on the first day and once as a Repeat Customer on each subsequent repeat purchase date.
If a customer buys 3 times over 3 days, and the date gets rolled up to a week view, the customer gets counted once as New Customer and twice as a Repeat Customer.
A customer can only be counted once as a New Customer, ever. |
Repurchase Analysis | Monthly | If a customer buys once in July and twice in August, the customer is counted once as a New Customer in July and once as a Repeat Customer in August.
If a customer buys 3 orders in July, the customer is counted once as a New Customer and once as a Repeat Customer. |
Last Order Analysis | Absolute | If a customer buys once in July and twice in August, the customer is counted once in August on the date of the third purchase and categorized as Repeat Purchaser.
If a customer buys 3 times in July, the customer is counted once on the date of the third purchase and categorized as Repeat Purchaser. |