Understanding Your Retention Metrics
Why Retention Metrics Matter for Shopify Affiliates
Your success as an affiliate isn't just measured by the number of initial referrals you generate—it's about the long-term value and sustainability of the merchants you bring to the platform. Understanding retention metrics provides crucial insights into the quality and effectiveness of your affiliate strategy.
What Are Retention Metrics?
Retention metrics track how many of your referred merchants remain active with Shopify after becoming a full-price paid subscription. For example, a “"Retained Full Price Shops: 3 Mo" event will be sent to Impact once your referred merchant has paid their 3rd full price subscription invoice. This data serves as a powerful indicator of referral quality, effectiveness, and the likelihood of a merchant’s longer-term success.
View Retention Metrics in These Two CUSTOM Reports
As a reminder to enable these two custom reports, you can go to ALL Reports in the menu dropdown in Impact, then select them at the bottom of the list.
- In the SHOPIFY Advanced Action Listing Report under "Event Type" as "Retained Full Price Shops: 3 Mo"
- In the Performance by Month (Cohort) Report under "Retained Full Price Shops: 3 Mo - Actions" with Date Range set to “Cohort” (see example below)
*Note: Please only use the “Cohort” view of this report, as the “In-Period” view will be inaccurate due to our backfill of 3-month Retention events all appearing to occur in September 2025.
Get Started
Login to your Impact dashboard and explore how you can leverage this data to help more merchants succeed. For additional resources to help drive long-term success, view Strategies To Keep Your Audience Engaged Long-Term.