Understanding Metrics
Learn about the key metrics SortLab tracks, what they mean, and how to use them to optimize your sorting strategies.
Understanding Metrics
SortLab tracks several key metrics to help you measure the impact of your sorting strategies and make data-driven decisions about how to merchandize your collections. This guide explains each metric in detail and shows you how to use them together.
Revenue
What it measures: The total dollar amount generated by orders that include products from your managed collections.
How it's calculated: When a customer places an order containing a product that belongs to a SortLab-managed collection, the line item revenue (price multiplied by quantity) is attributed to that collection. If a product belongs to multiple managed collections, the revenue is attributed to each one, so collection-level revenue totals may be higher than your overall store revenue.
Why it matters: Revenue is the primary metric for evaluating whether your sorting strategy is working. A well-optimized product order puts high-converting, high-margin products in front of shoppers earlier, leading to more revenue from the same amount of traffic.
Revenue in SortLab reflects gross product revenue from line items. It does not include shipping, taxes, or discounts. For full financial reporting, use Shopify's built-in analytics alongside SortLab.
Orders
What it measures: The total number of orders that included at least one product from a managed collection.
How it's calculated: Each unique order is counted once per collection. If a single order contains products from three different managed collections, it counts as one order for each of those three collections.
Why it matters: Order volume helps you understand traffic-to-purchase conversion at the collection level. If revenue is flat but order count is rising, that may indicate customers are buying lower-priced items, which could signal an opportunity to adjust your strategy.
Units Sold
What it measures: The total quantity of individual product units sold across a collection.
How it's calculated: Every unit in an order line item is counted. If a customer buys 3 units of the same product, that counts as 3 units sold.
Why it matters: Units Sold is a measure of sales velocity. It tells you how quickly products are moving off the shelf. High units sold with low revenue may indicate that cheaper items dominate the collection, while low units with high revenue suggests you're selling fewer but higher-priced products. This insight helps you decide whether to prioritize volume-based or margin-based strategies.
Revenue Trend
What it measures: The percentage change in revenue compared to the previous equivalent time period.
How it's calculated: SortLab compares the revenue for the selected period against the same length of time immediately before it. For example, if you're viewing the 30-day window, the trend compares the last 30 days to the 30 days before that.
How to interpret it:
| Trend | What it means |
|---|---|
| Positive (green) | Revenue is growing compared to the prior period. Your strategy may be working well. |
| Flat (neutral) | Revenue is roughly the same. Consider testing a new strategy to push performance higher. |
| Negative (red) | Revenue has declined. Investigate whether product availability, seasonality, or strategy changes are contributing factors. |
A negative trend doesn't always mean your sorting strategy is underperforming. Seasonal dips, stock-outs, and promotional cycles all affect revenue. Look at the trend alongside other metrics before making changes.
Sort Runs
What it measures: The number of times SortLab has executed a sort on a given collection during the selected time period.
Why it matters: Sort Runs tell you how actively SortLab is maintaining your collection's product order. More frequent sorting means your product order is updated more often to reflect the latest sales data, inventory changes, and customer behavior.
Expected frequency by plan:
| Plan | Maximum sort frequency | Typical Sort Runs (30 days) |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Manual only | Varies (however many times you click Sort Now) |
| Pro | Up to 2x per day | Up to 60 |
| Plus | Every hour | Up to 720 |
If your Sort Runs count is lower than expected for a scheduled collection, check that the collection's schedule is enabled and that SortLab is active in your Shopify admin.
Collections Managed vs. Total
What it measures: The number of collections actively managed by SortLab compared to your store's total collection count.
Why it matters: This metric shows your sorting coverage. If you have many unmanaged collections, those products are being shown in Shopify's default order, which may not be optimized for revenue.
What to aim for: Ideally, every customer-facing collection should be managed by SortLab. If you're on the Free plan and have reached your 3-collection limit, consider upgrading to Pro for unlimited collections.
Est. Revenue Opportunity
What it measures: An estimate of the potential additional monthly revenue you could generate by optimizing your remaining unmanaged collections or increasing your sort frequency.
How it's calculated: SortLab looks at the average performance improvement across your managed collections and projects that improvement onto your unmanaged collections based on their current traffic and order data.
Why it matters: This metric helps you prioritize which collections to set up next and make a business case for upgrading your plan. A large Revenue Opportunity number suggests significant untapped potential.
The Revenue Opportunity estimate requires several weeks of data to become accurate. It will appear as a dash (--) until SortLab has collected enough performance data from your managed collections.
Using metrics to optimize your strategy
Here's how to put these metrics together for data-driven decisions:
Identify underperforming collections
Look at the collection performance table and sort by Trend. Collections with a negative trend deserve attention first. Check whether the issue is low Sort Runs (the collection may not be sorting frequently enough), declining orders (a traffic problem), or falling units sold (a product availability problem).
Compare strategies across collections
If you have similar collections using different strategies, compare their Revenue and Trend metrics. A collection using Revenue Maximizer that outperforms a similar one using Balanced Smart Sort is a signal to switch the underperformer.
Monitor after making changes
Whenever you change a sorting strategy, check the dashboard after 7 to 14 days. Look for:
- Revenue trend turning positive — the new strategy is working
- Units Sold increasing — more products are being purchased
- Orders growing — more customers are converting
Know when to experiment
If your metrics are flat across the board, it's a good time to run an A/B test. Testing lets you compare two strategies head-to-head without committing fully to a change.
Best practices for data-driven decisions
- Give strategies time. Don't change your sorting strategy every day. Allow at least 7 to 14 days of data before evaluating results.
- Use the 30-day view as your default. It provides enough data to be statistically meaningful while still being responsive to recent changes.
- Look at metrics together, not in isolation. Revenue alone doesn't tell the full story. Check orders, units sold, and trend to get a complete picture.
- Compare similar collections. A high-traffic collection will naturally generate more revenue. Compare collections with similar product counts and traffic levels for meaningful insights.
- Set a review cadence. Check your analytics dashboard at least once a week. This keeps you informed without overreacting to daily fluctuations.
Next steps
- Analytics Dashboard — Learn how to navigate the dashboard and use its features
- A/B Testing — Run controlled experiments to validate strategy changes
- Sorting Strategies — Understand the strategies behind the numbers