Tutorials / Convert and retain

Measure a launch day properly

3 minute read

Launch days produce the most misleading analytics of the year: a traffic spike everyone screenshots and nobody converts. Set up ten minutes before the launch and you will know what it was worth.

1. Tag every door before you open them

Product Hunt:  https://acme.com/?ref=producthunt
Hacker News:   https://acme.com/?ref=hn
Launch email:  https://acme.com/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=launch

2. Watch it live, calmly

The dashboard's live strip shows visitors from the last five minutes and updates itself. Enjoy the spike; do not judge anything yet.

3. Judge it a week later, in revenue

Set the date range to launch week. The sources panel now shows each ?ref= door's visitors, orders and revenue (the tagged email sits in the Campaigns tab), and "Where your sales came from" shows whether launch traffic actually closed or just warmed people up for later. The comparison line under the chart shows launch week against the week before it, so the lift is measured, not remembered.