Setting targets for metrics in your Shopify reports

You can set targets for key metrics in your Shopify reports and analytics to track your progress toward specific business goals. Targets let you set clear goals, such as a revenue target or a session benchmark, and compare your actual performance over time.

A target is a numeric goal for a specific metric over a specific time period. For example, you might set a target of $50,000 USD in gross sales for March, or 500 orders for the first quarter of the year.

Each target contains the following elements:

• Metric: The measure that you're tracking, such as Gross sales, Orders, or Conversion rate. You can also include an optional filter to narrow your target to a specific dimension, such as a sales channel or product.
• Target amount: The value that you're aiming for, such as $5000 USD or 75%.
• Time period: The duration of time defined by when the target starts and ends, such as a week, month, quarter, year, or a custom range.

When you create a target, a target gauge displays your progress, including the percentage complete, the current value versus the target value, status, and days remaining.

Considerations for using targets in Shopify reports

Before you create targets for your Shopify reports and analytics, review the following considerations:

• Targets support only fixed amounts. Growth rates, ratios, and pacing aren't supported.
• You can add only 1 filter per target.
• Targets are created and tracked per-store.

Create a target

You can create your first target from the Analytics page of your Shopify admin using the Create target button at the top right hand side of the screen.

When creating a target, you can choose to add the target as a card on your Analytics overview dashboard during the creation process.

After you create a target, the target's status updates from Draft status to its active status based on the target's criteria.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Analytics.

2. Click Create target, or Manage targets > Create target if you've already saved at least 1 target.

3. In the Metric menu, select the metric that you want to use for your target:

   • Click the menu and choose from suggested metrics or browse by category.
   • Optional: To add a filter to narrow the target to a specific dimension, click and then select a filter by category or by keyword.

4. In the Target amount field, enter your target amount, such as $5000 USD or 75%. This value must be greater than zero.

5. From the Time period menu, select a time period for your target. The default is the current month. You can select either of the following options:

   • To use a preset time period, click Weeks, Months, Quarters, or Years, and then select the period that you want to use.
   • To use a custom date range, click Custom and then select a range up to 2 years in the past or future. Then, click Apply.

6. Optional: Edit the Target name field that generates automatically based on your target criteria.

7. In the Preview section, configure your final settings:

   • Review the target that displays as a gauge with your current progress to confirm that it displays as expected.
   • Optional: Activate or deactivate the Add to dashboard setting to add the target as a card to your Analytics overview dashboard.

8. Click Save, or Save to dashboard.

Add a target to your Analytics overview dashboard

You can activate the Add to dashboard setting for a target to add a card with a target gauge visualization to the Analytics overview dashboard. You can use this target card as a quick at-a-glance method of tracking your store's progress towards your goal. The target card on the dashboard is exempt from dashboard-level date range and comparison changes because the card always displays the target's own time period. Learn more about customizing your Analytics overview dashboard.

You can activate this setting in any of the following ways:

• When creating a new target from the Analytics overview dashboard, the Add to dashboard setting is active by default.
• When creating a new target from the Targets list, save the target and then click Add to dashboard.
• When editing an existing target, save your changes and then click Add to dashboard to add the updated version as a new card to your dashboard.

When you add a target to your Analytics overview dashboard, you can access an automatically-generated report from the dashboard with the target criteria preloaded in the configuration panel. The report isn't synced to the target itself, meaning changes that you make to the report don't cause the target itself to change or update in any way.

You can use this target report as a foundation for developing your own data exploration surrounding the metrics and time periods for your target, which you can then save as a completely separate report. Learn more about customizing reports.

Display target progress with the cumulative view

In addition to the gauge visualization, you can compare your progress toward a target over time using the cumulative view on a line or bar visualization with a time-based dimension. This view is useful for understanding whether you're on pace to hit your target, not just how close you currently are to reaching your target. For example, if your target is to make $3,000 USD in total sales over a period of 30 days, then the pacing line rises by $100 USD per day, from $0 USD at the start of the period to $3,000 USD at the end. You can then review at a glance whether your cumulative total sales falls above or below the expected cumulative pace.

When you use the cumulative view for a report that compares to targets, the visualization displays the following details:

• A solid line for your cumulative actual values, which grows from zero as each day's results are added.
• A dashed pacing line from zero to your target value, which represents the pace that you need to maintain to hit your target by the end of the period.

Learn more about including cumulative values in visualizations.

Steps:

1. Open the report for your target. You can click View report from the target's details page, or open the report from a target card on your Analytics overview dashboard.
2. To activate the cumulative view in the visualization, do any of the following actions:
   • In the comparison menu, select Targets.
   • In the Visualization section of the configuration panel, activate the Cumulative setting.

Managing your targets

After you've created at least 1 target, the Manage targets menu becomes available on the Analytics overview dashboard in your Shopify admin. Click Manage targets > View targets to open the Targets list, where you can access all of your targets in a single list. The Targets list displays each target's name, status, progress bar, current amount, target amount, and time period.

From the Targets list, you can do any of the following actions:

• Click any target to open it in edit mode.
• Search your targets based on keywords.
• Click any column name to adjust the sort options to be ascending or descending.
• Select multiple targets and delete them in bulk.

Target statuses

Your targets can have different statuses that indicate the target's progress. Review the following table to learn about the different target statuses:

Edit a target

You can change the name, amount, time period, or filters for any target. You can also edit or delete targets for past time periods.

From a target's details page, you can also click Add to dashboard to place the target gauge on your Analytics overview dashboard. If you edit a target and have the target saved to your dashboard, then you need to re-add the target to your dashboard manually to display the updated target criteria.

If your changes would create a duplicate target with the same metric, time period, and filters as an existing target, then an error displays with guidance on what you need to change.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Analytics.

2. Click Manage targets > View targets.

3. Click the target that you want to edit.

4. Change the target name, target amount, time period, or filters.

5. Click Save.

6. Optional: Click Add to dashboard to re-add the updated target to the Analytics overview dashboard.

Delete a target

You can delete a target at any time from your Shopify admin. You can delete targets individually or in bulk.

Deleted targets can't be restored. To use the same target again, you need to create a new one.

Steps: