New Subscribers by Channel and Campaign

New Subscribers by Channel and Campaign shows how many customers started a subscription from each marketing source and campaign. It sets each campaign’s ad spend beside them, so you can see what a new subscriber costs.

How It’s Calculated

The report counts first subscription orders: orders with at least 1 item on a subscription plan that came through a sales channel. Renewals and one-time orders are left out. Subscription Order Types explains how each order’s type is worked out.

Each order is credited to the utm_source and utm_campaign Shopify recorded on it. Those are the same tags Sales by Marketing Source and Sales by Marketing Campaign group by. Tags are matched without regard to case.

Matching Campaigns to Ad Spend

A row’s utm_campaign is matched to one of the campaigns from your connected ad platforms when it equals either of these:

• The campaign’s ID on the ad platform.
• The UTM value you set for the campaign with Map Campaign UTMs… on the das Pixel page.

When 2 campaigns claim the same value, the row is matched to neither. A matched row shows the ad platform in Channel and the campaign’s name in Campaign. Rows from different sources that match the same campaign are shown as one row, so its spend is counted once.

The Columns

• Channel: the ad platform for a matched campaign, or the utm_source. Orders with no source show (direct / unknown).
• Campaign: the campaign’s name, or the utm_campaign. Orders with no campaign show (none).
• New Subscribers: the customers who placed those orders. A guest order counts as 1 customer.
• First Subscription Orders: the orders themselves.
• First Order Sales: the Total Sales of those orders, less returns made in the date range.
• Ad Spend: the campaign’s spend in the date range, converted to your store’s currency at the latest exchange rate. It’s blank on a row no campaign matched, because its spend isn’t known.
• Cost per New Subscriber: Ad Spend divided by New Subscribers. It’s blank when the row has no spend or no subscribers.

Every campaign that spent money in the date range has a row, even with no new subscribers. Rows are sorted by New Subscribers, then by Ad Spend.

The Totals

The cards and the totals row add up every row. Their Cost per New Subscriber is all your ad spend divided by all your new subscribers, including those that came in untagged.

What Counts

• Orders that were canceled, or whose payment was voided or expired, don’t count.
• Segment, Sales Channel and Filters narrow the orders. They don’t change the ad spend.
• Dates follow your store’s time zone.
• Results are saved for up to 10 minutes, so a new order can take that long to appear.

This report has no Compare control and no chart.

How Much of Your History It Covers

Orders imported before By the Numbers recorded subscription plans count as One-Time, so they aren’t counted here until your order history is imported again. A note above the table says how many of the orders your subscription app created in the date range are recognized. It becomes a warning below 95%.

What Good Looks Like

There’s no target. A subscriber is worth what they pay over every renewal, so compare Cost per New Subscriber with what your subscribers bring in over their first months, not with one order.

Compare campaigns with each other. A campaign whose cost per new subscriber is well below the total brings in subscribers more cheaply than your ads as a whole.

What to Do About It

• A campaign with a low cost per new subscriber: give it more budget, and use its offer in other campaigns.
• A campaign that spends but brings in no subscribers: check whether it’s meant to sell subscriptions. If it is, look at its landing page and offer.
• Many subscribers under (none) or (direct / unknown): your ads aren’t carrying UTM tags. How to Tag Your Ads With UTM Parameters shows how.
• A tagged campaign with blank Ad Spend: its utm_campaign matches no campaign. Set the value with Map Campaign UTMs… on the das Pixel page.

Get AI Insight at the top of the report asks Copilot for a short read of it, for the date range and filters you chose. Pin to Dashboard adds the total Cost per New Subscriber to a dashboard. Export CSV saves the table, when you can export data.

Where to Find It

• New Subscribers by Channel and Campaign: open Reports and look under Marketing.
• Sales by Marketing Campaign: every order, not only first subscription orders, by utm_campaign.
• Campaign Performance: spend, clicks and conversions for each campaign.