Digital Marketing Specialist
Most merchants run a Gift With Purchase promotion, watch orders come in during the campaign window, and call it a success. The problem is that revenue going up while a GWP is active doesn’t tell you much. It might be a seasonal spike. It might be a paid ad push. It might be that customers were going to spend that amount anyway.
Without the right tracking setup, you can’t tell whether the gift is actually driving behavior or just costing you margin on orders that would have happened regardless.
This article covers exactly what to measure, where to find the data inside Shopify and your GWP app, and how to interpret what you see so you can make the campaign better next time.
👉 If you are new to Shopify and looking for a way to create GWP promotion on Shopify, read our detailed guide here: How to Set Up a Free Gift With Purchase on Shopify? (4 Methods)
The metrics you track should match what the campaign was designed to do.
A merchant running GWP to increase AOV needs different signals than one trying to introduce a new product or move slow inventory. If you track everything without a defined goal, you end up with a spreadsheet full of numbers and no clear story.
Before you pull any data, confirm which of these goals your campaign is built around:
| Campaign Goal | Primary Metric to Track |
|---|---|
| Increase Average Order Value | AOV lift vs. baseline |
| Improve conversion rate | Session-to-order conversion rate |
| Introduce a new product | Post-campaign purchase rate of the gift SKU |
| Clear slow inventory | Units moved on the gift SKU during the campaign |
One campaign, one primary goal. That goal determines which number you treat as your headline result; everything else is supporting context.
💡 Tip: If you started the campaign without a defined goal, pick the one that best reflects why you chose that particular gift and threshold. Then use this campaign’s data as your baseline for the next one.
Once you know your goal, these are the five metrics that give you a complete picture of GWP performance. Weigh them based on your goal, but each one answers a different question about what the campaign is doing.
What it is: The percentage of eligible orders (orders that hit your cart threshold) where the gift was actually claimed.
Why it matters: Redemption rate tells you whether the offer is visible and compelling. A low redemption rate on a high-traffic campaign almost always points to one of two problems: customers didn’t see the offer, or the gift wasn’t motivating enough to act on.
How to calculate it:
Where to find the data: Your GWP app dashboard is the most direct source. In BOGOS, campaign-level reporting shows both the number of orders that qualified and the number where the gift was redeemed. If your app doesn’t provide this, export your orders for the campaign period, filter by order value ≥ your threshold, and check how many of those orders include the gift SKU as a line item.
A redemption rate below 30% usually signals a visibility or relevance issue, not a threshold issue.
What it is: The percentage change in average order value between your campaign period and a comparable baseline period.
Why it matters: AOV lift is the primary signal that GWP is actually changing spending behavior. It tells you whether customers are adding more to their cart to hit the threshold, or just buying what they planned to anyway.
How to calculate it:
For example, if your baseline AOV was $65 and your campaign AOV is $74, your lift is 13.8%.
Important caveat: AOV lift alone doesn’t tell you whether the campaign was profitable. A $9 AOV lift means nothing if the gift costs $12 to fulfill. Always pair AOV lift with gift cost data (covered in the next metric).
👉 If you’re struggling to increase AOV using GWP campaigns, read our guide here: How to Choose the Right Gift & Set Conditions That Protect Your Margins
What it is: The total cost of gifts given away divided by the total revenue from orders that included a gift.
Why it matters: This is the margin check. It tells you whether the AOV increase was actually profitable, or whether you gave away more value than you captured.
How to calculate it:
A practical example: Say your campaign generated 200 orders that included a gift. Average order value on those orders was $74. The gift item costs you $10 to source and fulfill.
Whether that’s acceptable depends on your margins, but now you have a number to evaluate, not a guess.
What it is: Your session-to-order conversion rate during the campaign compared to your baseline.
Why it matters: GWP can improve conversion by increasing the perceived value of an order. A well-placed, relevant gift can tip undecided visitors into buyers. Tracking this tells you whether that effect is real in your store.
Where to find it: Shopify Analytics → Overview → Conversion rate. For traffic-source breakdowns, use GA4.
One thing to watch: if you ran paid ads during the campaign to promote the GWP, higher traffic volume may suppress your overall conversion rate even if the offer itself is converting well. Segment by organic vs. paid sessions in GA4 to separate those effects.
What it is: Total revenue divided by total sessions during the campaign period, compared against your baseline.
Why it matters: AOV can go up while total sessions drop, which means less total revenue, not more. Revenue per session gives you the combined picture: are customers both converting at a higher rate and spending more per order?
How to calculate it:
If revenue per session rises during your campaign, the promotion is working as a whole. If it stays flat or drops, dig into whether the traffic quality changed or whether the AOV lift is being offset by lower conversion.
Tracking GWP performance pulls from three main sources. Here’s what each one covers and where it falls short.
Shopify’s native analytics gives you AOV, total revenue, orders by day, and session-to-order conversion rate. Go to Analytics → Overview for the summary view, or Analytics → Reports → Sales for order-level detail.
The key limitation: Shopify doesn’t natively track gift-specific behavior. It can’t tell you which orders included the gift SKU or what your redemption rate was. For that, you need your GWP app or a manual order export.
Most GWP apps provide campaign-level reporting that Shopify’s native analytics can’t. In BOGOS, you can see impressions, redemptions, and orders that included a gift, all tied directly to a specific campaign.
This is the most efficient source for redemption rate and gift attachment data. Before the campaign starts, confirm which events your app tracks and whether it counts redemptions correctly (some apps count the gift being added to cart; others count only completed orders).
👉 If you’re looking for a dedicated GWP app review, this article will break down the top 8 GWP Shopify apps you should try.
If your GWP app doesn’t provide built-in reporting, manual order export works as a fallback:
It’s more time-consuming, but the data is accurate. Use a spreadsheet tool to automate the filtering if you’re doing this regularly.
GA4 is most useful for conversion rate by traffic source, revenue per session, and date-range comparisons. Use the Comparisons feature to set your campaign period against your baseline side by side.
⚠️ Watch out: GA4 can only report on data from after it was connected to your Shopify store. If the integration wasn’t active before your campaign started, you’ll have gaps. Set it up before you launch the next campaign, not after.
A 15% AOV lift sounds strong. But if you’re comparing your campaign to a slow holiday weekend two months ago, the comparison is meaningless. The baseline you choose determines whether your results are meaningful or misleading.
A baseline is a comparable period without the GWP running that you use as a control. Here’s how to choose one that gives you a fair comparison.
Match the same days of the week. Consumer spending behavior varies significantly between weekdays and weekends. If your campaign ran Monday through Sunday, compare it against a previous Monday–Sunday window, not a random 7-day stretch.
Use the 2–4 weeks immediately before the campaign. Recent data reflects your current traffic mix, pricing, and product catalog. The further back you go, the more unrelated factors may have changed.
Avoid periods with other active promotions. If your baseline period included a flash sale or a BOGO, it’s not a clean control. Find the most “normal” window you can.
For seasonal businesses, use year-over-year instead. If you’re in a category where Q4 is dramatically different from Q1, comparing the same weeks from the previous year is more meaningful than comparing to the weeks before the campaign.
Raw numbers need context. The same AOV lift figure can mean very different things depending on what else changed during the campaign. Here are four common result patterns and what each one is telling you.
What it likely means: Customers are reaching the threshold anyway. The gift is being claimed, but it isn’t changing how much people spend. It’s just being added on top of orders that would have happened regardless.
What to check: What percentage of your orders during the baseline period were already above the threshold? If more than 60–70% of your customers were already spending at or above the threshold before the campaign, the threshold is too low. The gift is a free bonus, not a behavior driver.
What to do: Raise the threshold to a level that requires incremental spend. A common approach is to set it 20–30% above your current average order value.
What it likely means: Customers are spending more to reach the threshold, but the gift is costing more than the incremental revenue it’s generating.
What to check: Calculate gift cost as a percentage of your AOV lift (not total revenue). If each incremental order brings in $9 more than baseline but the gift costs $10 to fulfill, the campaign is margin-negative even if the headline AOV number looks good.
What to do: Either raise the threshold so the incremental spend outpaces the gift cost, or switch to a gift with similar perceived value but a lower fulfillment cost. Good options include a bundled sample, a branded item with low COGS, or a slow-moving SKU you’re already holding.
What it likely means: Offering visibility is the problem, not the offer itself. Customers are landing on your store and completing orders without ever engaging with the GWP.
What to check: Where is the offer being shown? A small banner at the bottom of the cart page is easy to miss. If you don’t have a cart progress bar or a prominent announcement on the product page, most visitors won’t know the promotion exists.
What to do: Improve the placement before adjusting the offer. Add a progress bar in the cart, an announcement bar at the top of the site, and a callout on high-traffic product pages. Test the new setup for 5–7 days before drawing conclusions.
What it likely means: The GWP is converting fence-sitters (visitors who were on the edge of buying) but it isn’t motivating customers to spend more.
What it could mean for your goal: If your primary goal was AOV, this is a miss and you need a higher threshold. But if your store has a conversion problem, this is actually a win. The campaign is doing something useful, just not what you originally targeted.
What to do: Decide which problem is more valuable to solve. If conversion is the bigger lever in your store, reframe this campaign type as a conversion tool. Run a separate bundle or upsell offer to target AOV.
Tracking without acting is just bookkeeping. Here’s how to close the loop.
Don’t wait until the campaign ends to look at the data. Check redemption rate and AOV every 2–3 days while the campaign is live. If redemption is below 15% in the first 3 days, there’s a visibility problem you can still fix before the campaign ends.
Memory fades fast. Within 7 days of the campaign ending, document your results in a campaign log. This becomes your reference point for every GWP you run after this.
Checklist — Campaign Log (track these columns for every GWP you run):
Over 3–4 campaigns, patterns emerge. You’ll start to see which gift types drive redemption, which thresholds actually shift AOV, and how much margin each campaign type typically consumes.
Tracking GWP performance comes down to four steps: define your goal, set a clean baseline, measure the right metrics, and act on what you find.
The core metrics (redemption rate, AOV lift, gift cost as a percentage of revenue, conversion rate impact, and revenue per session) each answer a different question. You don’t need all five equally, but together they give you a complete picture of what the campaign is actually doing.
The most important mindset shift is this: a GWP campaign isn’t successful because orders went up while it was running. It’s successful when the gift changed behavior in a way that was profitable. When customers spent more than they would have otherwise, and the incremental revenue exceeded the cost of the gift.
Once you have that benchmark, each campaign becomes a test you can build on.
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