Partner Funnel Metrics

You don't need a dashboard with forty charts. You need a handful of numbers that tell you whether the program is healthy and where it's leaking. Read them as a funnel.

The core funnel

• •Clicks / referral link activity — are partners actually promoting?
• •Installs — how many referred merchants installed the app?
• •Referral → install conversion — of the merchants a partner sent, how many installed?
• •Install → paid conversion — how many became paying merchants?
• •Attributed revenue — the number that actually matters to the business.

Program-health metrics

• •Active partner rate — what share of enrolled partners drove a referral recently? This is the truest measure of program health, and the one most founders ignore in favour of total signups.
• •Time to first referral — how long from approval to a partner's first attributed install? Long times mean onboarding is leaking.
• •Top-partner concentration — is revenue coming from many partners or just two or three?

Retention

Beyond acquisition, watch whether the merchants your partners refer stick around. A partner who sends merchants who churn in a month is worth less than one who sends fewer, stickier stores. Cohort retention by partner (coming to the analytics chapters) is the advanced view; even a rough sense of 'do partner-referred stores stay?' is useful.

Turn metrics into action

Low active-partner rate → fix onboarding and re-engagement. High time-to-first-referral → your welcome flow isn't producing a first action. Revenue concentrated in two partners → recruit more of that partner type and protect those relationships.