High Level Overview

The Lifetime Value Dashboard helps you understand the overall value of your paid customers by providing an analytical view of their growth and monetization over time.

The report provides a running monetary value of first time paid customers to your Affiliate (called New to Affiliates or NTAs). It also breaks down these customers by various dimensions, all related to their first paid purchase with you Affiliate, and then shows how they were monetized throughout their lifetime as a customer. 

Using this dashboard, you can easily determine:

• The revenue per NTA for a cohort of customers
• The source of NTA customers
• The month over month monetization of NTA cohorts

About the Data Source

This dashboard uses BI’s Master Data Set as its main source of data.  This data is built using customer data from Advantage as well as the transactional data from CircBase.  The super customer number (SCN) process is used to identify individual customers.  The dashboard will show data for the current year and the 7 previous years.

Lifetime Value Business Concepts

Definition of an NTA

A customer is considered an NTA (New to Affiliate) when they do not have a current active lifecycle within your business and they make a paid purchase.  This transaction is considered the NTA transaction and all of their subsequent spending gets counted as part of the customer’s lifecycle.

Lifecycling

LTV looks at customer lifecycles within a given Affiliate, not individual human beings

• If you purchase and become an NTA and then don’t transact for a long time (length of term plus 6 months for subscriptions or purchase date plus 18 months for products) within that given Affiliate, when you do purchase again, you will qualify as an NTA anew. Thus, you would then have two lifecycles with that Affiliate. The net spending associated with lifecycle one stays with lifecycle one, but the net spending associated with lifecycle two stays with lifecycle two.

Values

Values are averaged out for the various timeframes.  Initial value/NTA shows the average initial value/NTA for that cohort.  Each subsequent timeframe shows the net average value/NTA for that timeframe for that cohort.

• Values are net of refunds and include all online and offline spending that is in CircBase
• Values are post-split, meaning that revenue sharing among Affiliates is taken into account
• Third party royalties can also be accounted for and taken out if properly defined in advantage
• Marketing and fulfillment costs are not accounted for LTV

Shading Scale

To prevent looking at Rev/NTA prematurely, a shading system is in place.  If the box is black, it means less than 50% of names for that cohort qualify for the spending timeframe you’re trying to analyze.  As more NTAs qualify for that timeframe, the boxes lighten.  Dark gray means less than 75% qualify, light gray means less than 90% qualify and white indicates that more than 90% of your NTAs qualified.

Calculating Values in LTV Buckets

The total net revenue that was generated by the cohort for that timeframe (Q1, Month 1, Year 2, etc.) is divided by the number of NTAs that have reached the end of that milestone.  So if you have a cohort of 100 NTAs and only 55 of them have reached 91 days (end of Q1), the total net revenue in the Q1 bucket will be divided by 55 NTAs instead of the total 100 NTAs. 

Lead Gen/Two-Step

LTV uses the same conversion logic that is used for EAD to determine if the customer acquisition is a Lead Gen/Two-Step.  If a customer purchase is considered a conversion in EAD (i.e. the first purchase on a list for a product owned by the same Affiliate who owns that list) then in LTV we will consider them a Lead Gen/Two-Step acquisition.  Everyone else will be considered a Direct/One-Step.  For Lead Gen/Two-Step customers, we will go back to the original source (X) code that added the customer to the list and attribute the customers LTV to that source code.

Active NTA Lifecycle

This filter allows users to drill down to look at customers whose lifecycles are active or not.  This is determined by identifying if the next purchase that is made by a customer will continue the current lifecycle or start a new lifecycle.

Using the Lifetime Value Dashboard

You can access the Lifetime Value Dashboard in the Dashboard Reporting folder of QlikView or by using this link: LifetimeValue_v2

You can use this dashboard to see the running monetary value of your NTA customers.  The report breaks down these customers by various dimensions, like when they became an NTA, what campaign they came on with, their acquisition method, source, product they became an NTA with, if they were a direct paid customer or if they started as a free name, etc. It then shows how they were monetized throughout their lifetime as a customer. 

Summary Tab

The dashboard opens to the ‘Summary’ tab: a company-wide summary view organized by year of NTA purchase. Since it reports in native currency, it’s best to select a given Affiliate or region as a first step via the filter boxes on the left hand side before beginning to analyze the lifetime value.

Note: This dashboard only reports the current year plus the previous 7 (example in January of 2020, we will no longer show the 2012 NTA cohort) unlike the previous LTV dashboard which went back to 2006.

Including Additional Subsequent Revenue Sources

The default is to display monetization only on products owned by the selected Affiliates. However, this dashboard also allows you to toggle on revenue brought into your Affiliate via existing customers through rev share and/or CPA deals, regardless of who owns the product, to get a look at all monetization.

Agora Cross Affiliate Revenue Share

• This is revenue that your Affiliate earned through a revenue share with another Agora Affiliate where your Affiliate is the owner of the product sold (parent).

CPA Revenue

• This is additional revenue that your Affiliate earned where there was a CPA deal in place with another Affiliate, internal or external. To allocate this we look at the owning org of the list attached to promo codes flagged as CPA in IRIS and assign the revenue there.

Spending Timeframe Buckets

The average spending of your NTAs is bucketed by their initial cart purchase (including the primary item AND cross sell) and subsequent net spending by timeframes; 0-3 Months, 4-6 Months, 7-9 Months, 10-12 Months, 2 Years and 3 Years. We also provide the average cumulative LTV revenue per NTA customer but we cap it at 5 years’ worth of monetization (anything after that is gravy!). After that we stop tracking until or unless a new lifecycle is started. Note: On this tab, refunds for the initial cart will be reflected in the quarter in which they took place, so the ‘initial’ and ‘initial cart cross sell’ values are not net but the overall LTV is.

Keep in mind that marketing and fulfillment costs are not accounted for LTV, so this is just monetization.

Cyclic View (Swirly Arrow) Options

The default view is by Year (of NTA purchase) but if you right-click on the swirly arrow in the chart you can also choose to view your NTA customers by Affiliate, Product, Promo Code, Campaign, AcqType Detail, AcqType Major, Net Acq Method, Year Quarter, Initial Price Range, Vendor, Creative, Offer, Month, Pub Type. Promo Choice, or Active NTA Lifecycle.

Filters

The filters on the top left hand side are more high level than the initial purchase: Affiliate attributes (name, category, region, owning org), initial cart values, how the customers were acquired (direct vs. two step and the acquisition type), whether or not they are actively spending (Active NTA Lifecycle), etc.

Just below that there is a separate set of filters under the header ‘NTA purchase Details’ that are specifically related to the initial NTA purchase (item, pub type, channel, promo code, campaign, list name, initial price range, offer, creative, choice, pay-up type, IRIS effort tag)

Monthly View Tab

This tab focuses on time dimensions and allows you to analyze monthly (as well as quarterly) spending by monthly NTA cohorts. This allows you to see monetization faster as customers qualify for these shorter spending timeframes faster.

Spending Timeframe Buckets

The columns for monthly values show the average net spending per NTA within that specific timeframe while the running totals (highlighted in green) provide a cumulative look at spending through key milestones (Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, Year 2 and Year 3). The default view of this tab hides the year 2 and 3 breakdowns but they can be toggled on and off via the radio buttons ‘Show/Hide Year 2’ and ‘Show/Hide Year 3’ just above the center of the chart.

Note: On this tab, refunds for the initial NTA purchase are broken out as a separate column. Refunds for the initial cart cross sell will still be reflected in the quarter in which they took place.

Revenue vs. Transactions

This tab also allows you to breakdown monetization by revenue or by total transactions (i.e. orders). So, if you are focused on selling high value items to your customers you could see less transactions but more revenue than someone focused on selling items at a lower price points.

Subsequent Analysis Tabs

These tabs (‘Subsequent Top 20 Analysis’ and ‘Subsequent by Month’) focus on the subsequent monetization of NTA customers after their initial NTA purchase.

Unlike the other tabs where you just see the average subsequent net spending bucketed by timeframe, these tabs allow you to see the details of that spending through visualizations and filters specifically related to subsequent purchases.

Using these tabs you can easily:

• Filter based on attributes of subsequent purchases
• See what items, pub types, price ranges and channels are driving the most subsequent purchases/revenue AND what they contribute to total subsequent revenue overall
• Filter to see how much of your subsequent revenue is made up from renewal vs. non-renewal revenue
• Drill down to specific promo codes, campaigns, offers, creatives and choices to see which efforts performed best from a subsequent revenue perspective
• Breakdown subsequent revenue by month (through month 14) to see when and how many NTAs are spending after the their initial purchase

Performance tip: We highly recommend drilling down to the NTA cohort you want to analyze BEFORE navigating to these tabs – or at the very least selecting an Affiliate(s) and timeframe. There is a lot of data driving these tabs so narrowing your scope before the tabs load will help with the speed and performance once you’re in them.

Important Caveats

• All subsequent revenue amounts are capped at 5 years’ worth of monetization, just like on the other tabs. After that we stop tracking within the dashboard until or unless a new lifecycle is started.
• All subsequent revenue is included in these tabs, even revenue that came from other sources outside of products owned by your Affiliate (i.e. Agora Cross Affiliate Revenue Share). There is no selection box available on these tabs to toggle that off and on. All values are still post-split like the other tabs.
• These tabs do not include a shading scale but all values are (at least partially) ‘cooked’, meaning we only show the details of subsequent spending for timeframes where 50% or more of the NTAs in the selected cohort qualify. So, any spending timeframe buckets shaded in black on both the ‘Summary’ and ‘Monthly View’ tabs will not be reflected on the ‘Subsequent Analysis’ tab.
• Selections made within the filters on the left hand side of the screen (related to the NTA cohort/purchase) will hold as you navigate across tabs. Selections made within the filters on the right hand side (related to subsequent purchases) will only apply to the subsequent analysis tabs. If you navigate to the ‘Summary’ or ‘Monthly View’ tabs after making subsequent purchase selections on the subsequent analysis tabs, those selections will clear.

Top KPI Boxes

Total NTA Customers: This is the count of NTA customers whose subsequent spending you are analyzing, so your cohort.

• It’s calculated based on the selections made on the left hand side (related to the NTA cohort) and it will not change with selections made on the right hand side.
• Note: There may be some NTA customers who don’t have a subsequent purchase/refund, or there may be some NTA customers who have multiple subsequent purchases/refunds. That is not taken into consideration with this value – this is just the total, unique count of NTA customers based on your selections.

Total Subsequent Revenue: This is the total ‘cooked’ net revenue for purchases made within the NTA customer lifecycle (for the cohort selected) after the initial cart.

• It’s calculated based on the selections made on the left hand side (related to the NTA cohort) and it will not change with selections made on the right hand side. It will only change if the NTA cohort (Total NTA Customers) changes.
• What it includes:
  • Net subsequent revenue (purchases and refunds)
  • Initial cart cross sell refunds
• What it doesn’t:
  • Initial purchase net revenue: initial NTA purchase and initial NTA purchase refund
  • Initial cart cross sell paid revenue
  • Uncooked subsequent net revenue – so revenue for timeframes where less than 50% of the NTAs in the selected cohort qualify

Filters

The filters on the left hand side of this tab are the same filters you see on the ‘Summary’ and ‘Monthly View’ tabs and they are all related to the NTA cohort. As mentioned previously, we highly recommend drilling down to the NTA cohort you want to analyze before navigating to this tab (for performance reasons) but once you’re here you can use these filters to modify or completely change the cohort.

The filters on the right hand side are specific to the subsequent analysis tabs and they are all related to your NTA customers’ subsequent monetization. So, they allow you to filter based on attributes of purchases made in your NTA customers’ lifecycles AFTER the NTA purchase.

Definitions:

• Subsequent Monetization Type – Differentiate between subsequent purchases made on the NTA purchase item (renewals, promo recaptures, etc.) vs. a different, Non-NTA Item. You can also differentiate between Non-NTA Item purchases made on renewal codes (Non-NTA Item Renewal) vs. non-renewal codes (Non-NTA item).
• Subsequent Item – Item(s) purchased after the NTA Purchase
• Subsequent Pub Type – Pub Type of the subsequent item(s) purchased
• Subsequent Channel – Channel of the promo code the subsequent item(s) was purchased on
• Subsequent Promo Code – Promo code/description the subsequent item(s) was purchased on
• Subsequent Campaign – Campaign code/description the subsequent item(s) was purchased on
• Subsequent Offer – Offer the subsequent item(s) was purchased on
• Subsequent Creative – Creative the subsequent item(s) was purchased on
• Subsequent Price Range – Price point of the subsequent item(s) purchased
• Subsequent Choice – Creative the subsequent item(s) was purchased on

Subsequent Top 20 Analysis vs. Subsequent by Month

Subsequent Top 20 Analysis

This tab/chart lets you swirly arrow to see what items, pub types, price ranges and channels are driving the most subsequent purchases/revenue AND what they contribute to total subsequent revenue overall for you cohort.

This is limited to show the top 20 values (based on total subsequent revenue) according to your selections.

The value on the left hand side of the each bar in the chart shows you the total number of NTAs in your cohort who purchased/refunded that item, pub type, price range or channel (depending on the swirly option you have selected).

Important note: The NTA counts within the chart are not unique since an NTA customer can go on to purchase/refund multiple things within their lifecycle.

The value on the right hand side of each bar, as well as the values along the X-axis, reflects the total net subsequent revenue brought in by that item, pub type, price range or channel. All values are sorted in descending order based on total subsequent revenue.

You can also hover over each bar to see more information. Specifically:

• Subsequent Rev – The total net subsequent revenue that item/pub type/price range/channel brought in (same value shown on the right hand side of the bar)
  • Keep in mind this value is ‘cooked’ so it does not include revenue for timeframes where less than 50% of the NTAs in the selected cohort qualify
• Subsequent Average Order Value – Subsequent Rev divided by the count of NTAs who purchased and/or refunded that item/pub type/price range/channel (same value shown on the left hand side of the bar)
• Subsequent Rev % Contribution – Subsequent Rev for that item/pub type/price range/channel divided by the total subsequent revenue for the entire NTA cohort (i.e. the Total Subsequent Revenue KPI box).
  • We’re only showing the top 20 values so the combined % contribution for all the values in the chart may not equal 100% if there are more than 20 values.

Subsequent by Month

This tab/chart breaks down subsequent revenue by month so you can see when and how many NTAs are spending after their initial purchase.

The values on the Y-axis are based on the subsequent revenue by time period per NTA. The values on the X-axis are the monthly buckets. We go out to month 14 so you can see the critical first year auto-renewal revenue for annual subscribers. Just like the retention dashboard, we look at a full 14 months (vs. 12) to account for all the attrition that occurs leading up to, during and right after the auto renew charge.

The first three bars on the chart (Initial, Initial Refund and X-Sell) are all related to the initial NTA cart purchase so they will not change based on subsequent purchase filter selections.

The monthly bars are tied to the subsequent monetization of your NTA cohort so they will adjust based on the selections made within the filters on the right hand side, those related to your NTA customers’ subsequent monetization. For example, if you select ‘Subsequent Pub Type = Backend’ the revenue and NTA values for the monthly buckets will change to reflect purchases/refunds made (by month) on backend pubs only by those in your NTA cohort. Same rule applies for all the subsequent purchase filters.

Keep in mind these values are ‘cooked’ so we only show the details of subsequent spending for timeframes where 50% or more of the NTAs in the selected cohort qualify.

You can also hover over each bar to see more information based on your selections. Specifically:

• Subsequent Revenue By Time Period Per NTA - The total net subsequent revenue brought in during that month divided by the entire cohort of NTA customers (i.e. the ‘Total NTA Customers’ KPI box)
• Total Revenue - The total net subsequent revenue brought in during that month
  • This value could be negative if the refund revenue exceeds the purchase revenue
• NTAs Who Purchased – The NTAs in your cohort that purchased something within that month
  • These counts are unique to the time period you are analyzing. So if one NTA customer buys twice within month 1, we will only count that customer once.
• NTAs Who Refunded - The NTAs in your cohort that refunded something within that month
  • These counts are unique to the time period you are analyzing. So if one NTA customer refunds twice within month 1, we will only count that customer once.

Tip: If you want to see what’s been purchased/refunded within a certain subsequent time period, so what drove the subsequent revenue, you can do that using both tabs. Simply click and drag within the chart on the ‘Subsequent by Month’ tab to select the time period you are interested in and then toggle over to the ‘Subsequent Top 20 Analysis’ (remember subsequent purchase selections will hold between the subsequent tabs). The values in the top 20 chart will now be specific to the time period selected so you can swirly arrow by item, pub type, price range or channel for more details.

Important note: You have now changed your NTA cohort because you have drilled down to a certain subsequent time period so we’re only showing Total NTA Customers and Subsequent Revenue for the that specific timeframe.

If you have any questions, please reach out to your MI Customer Success Partner or put in a ticket at intel@14west.us.