How to configure custom conversion metrics

You will learn

Learn how to create custom metrics to more accurately track the impact of your marketing and how customers drive conversions. By default Klaviyo provides many metrics (e.g., Placed Order) to track your business’s success. However, if you have a custom setup or a different business use case, these default metrics may not work for you. For example, your Placed Orders events include recurring subscriptions, and you’d like to review only orders placed through your ecommerce website. The guide below walks you through how to set up these custom metrics for your needs.

If you need help on deciding when you should use custom metrics, head to our strategic guide on using custom metrics.

Before you begin

It’s important to note that by creating your own custom metrics (e.g., Placed Order that now excludes subscriptions) will appear as a new metric option in Klaviyo reporting (i.e., it will not replace the default Placed Order metric). 

Metric mapping

You also have the option to utilize custom metrics within your mapped metrics. This helps ensure your generated predictive models and default reports are aligned to your account’s data structure and needs. For example, you may create a custom Placed Order event that is then used to calculate applicable reporting using this metric.

Reports that can use custom metrics

And any time you adjust a custom metric, applicable reporting will update. Reporting where you can use this custom metric includes:

• The home dashboard (main dashboard that greets you when logging in)
• Business review dashboards (within the dashboards section)
• Overview or analytics dashboards (within the dashboards section)
• Flow performance reports (within custom reports)
• Campaign performance reports (within custom reports)
• Single and multi-metric reports (within custom reports)
• Within flow analytics (in the flows list page itself)
• Within campaign conversions (in the campaigns list page itself)
• The conversion overview dashboard (Advanced KDP and Marketing Analytics customers only)
• The customer lifetime value (CLV) dashboard (Advanced KDP and Marketing Analytics customers only)
• The recency, frequency, and monetary (RFM) analysis report (Advanced KDP and Marketing Analytics customers only)
• The product analysis dashboard (Advanced KDP and Marketing Analytics customers only)

Using tags

Also, tags from your ecommerce integration, as well as other integrations, may not always reliably ingest correctly into Klaviyo. It is advised to avoid using tags in your custom metrics and events setup.

Default custom metrics

For Advanced KDP customers, Klaviyo is able to automatically detect and provide default custom metrics based on certain integrations. If you have a newly created default custom metric, you will see these appear within the Metrics tab. If you are not an Advanced KDP customer, head to the next section on creating your metrics.

The following ecommerce and partner integrations combinations will create default custom metrics:

Creating a new custom metric

1. Navigate to Analytics > Metrics.
2. In the upper right, click Create custom metric. Next, you will see the page to set up your new custom metric.
3. Under Details, create and enter the name of your new metric. Use a name that will help you easily identify what this metric captures (e.g., “Orders placed w/ subscriptions”).
   
4. Click the Aggregated by dropdown and choose how you want to calculate your metric (either by Value or Count). For example, if you want to capture revenue from Placed Order events, use Value to show the revenue output. If you want to redefine email clicks, use Count.
   
5. In the Define section, click the Metric name dropdown and select the metric definition to update. Note that these include Klaviyo and integration-specific events and metrics.
   
6. Once you have chosen your metric, click the Metric value property dropdown and choose from a list of properties that help you create the definition. For example, you may want Placed Order events to include subscriptions, so you may use Source Name to include subscription orders.
   
7. If applicable, click Add Filter to further define your filters and metric definition.
8. In the Property field, choose how the metric is classified. For example, it can be looked up by Source Name.
   
   Once you have chosen your property, the Type field will automatically determine how it will be represented (e.g., number, text, etc.). 
9. Click the Relationship dropdown and choose how to capture the value. For example, if you want to capture all paid subscriptions into your Placed Order event, select does not equal “non-paid marketing subscription.”
   
10. In the Value dropdown, find or add the actual value that this property represents.

    You can choose up to 3 filters that define how your metric or event calculates. It’s important to note that depending on what combination of properties and filters you use, you may run into instances where the configuration you chose inadvertently duplicates values. For example, a customer order includes a subscription and a retail good from your website. When a customer places this order, your Klaviyo account receives 2 unique events (one for the subscription and one for the website order). If you include a revenue value in your new definition and replicate it for the subscription, Klaviyo will count both events as a conversion and inflate the attributed revenue (as both are now mapped to the same custom event).

11. Optional: Once you are finished setting up your metric, you have the option to preview it to ensure it captures what you need. To do this, click Preview metric above. A modal will appear showing the conversion metric displayed in a bar chart on the left and profiles that fit this metric criteria on the right. 
12. When you are ready to save your new metric, click Create Metric.
13. Return to Analytics > Metrics to find your new metric.
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Editing a previously created custom metric definition

1. If you have previously created a custom event or metric definition and need to update it, head to Analytics > Metrics.
2. From the list find the metric you want to edit and click on it.
3. Click Edit definition in the upper right. You will return to the setup page from here, where you can adjust your definition, including filters, relationships, and values. Follow the instructions above to adjust these as needed.
4. Once you finish updating, return to Analytics > Metrics to confirm that your new definitions are reflected.

Deleting a previously created custom metric definition

1. Head to Analytics > Metrics.
2. In the list, find the metric you want to edit and click the 3 dot menu to the right and select Delete.
   
3. Once you finish updating, return to Analytics > Metrics to confirm that the custom metric has been deleted.

Additional resources

Understanding when and how to use custom metrics
Analytics glossary
Understanding how Klaviyo billing works