Templates and digital downloads
For digital products: which post, launch or newsletter sold each download.
A digital product business sells files people download, an ebook, a guide, a toolkit, a bundle, usually launched to an audience built on social posts and a newsletter. Tally ties each order to the visit that preceded it, so you can see which posts and launches sold, and which buyers came back for the next product.
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01How they sell
- One-offSingle products and bundles bought once, with launch discounts that make the first days carry a large share of the total.
- DonationsPay-what-you-want pricing on a guide, which turns some readers who would have downloaded it free into small payers.
- SubscriptionA membership that opens the whole library and every new product as it comes out.
02Payments it reads
- Lemon SqueezyCheckout links with file delivery and tax handled, chosen by creators who want to sell files from their own page; orders and refunds are read.
- StripePayment Links on the sales page, delivering the file from your own site; orders, refunds and chargebacks are read.
- PolarUsed by technical creators selling guides and source code with file downloads; orders and refunds are read.
What Tally can't read
- Gumroad sales aren't read; only orders through Lemon Squeezy, Stripe, Paddle or Polar are.
- Products sold through Etsy or another marketplace listing aren't read.
- Downloads of the files themselves aren't counted; only visits to your pages and the orders are.
03Where buyers come from
- X threadsA thread teaching part of the product sends readers to the sales page, and their orders sit on X's row.
- Your newsletterLaunch emails sell the first days; UTM-tagged links give each email its own revenue.
- InstagramCarousels link from a bio link that opens in Instagram's in-app browser, which Readable Direct names.
- Blog postsEvergreen posts on the product's topic sell slowly and keep selling long after the launch.
04What Tally answers
When should the next launch email go out?
Peak hours shows past sales by weekday and hour; send when your buyers have tended to buy. It names the busiest three hours only when the sales support it.
Peak hoursDo buyers of one product buy the next?
Lifetime value by first source gives each source's repeat rate and average lifetime revenue, so an audience that buys everything you make shows apart from one-off buyers.
Lifetime valueWhich post sold the bundle?
Every breakdown, by referrer, campaign or landing page, carries the revenue behind its rows, so a post's sales are on its row.
Sources with revenueDid launch day sell through the email or through X?
Each order's receipt shows the visits before it and the credited one; a buyer who saw the thread and then clicked the email shows both.
ReceiptsCan I get a ping for every sale during a launch?
Sale alerts go to email, Slack, Discord, Telegram or a webhook as each order is linked, with its credited source.
Alerts and digests
05Numbers worth watching
- Revenue by source
- The money behind each post, email and platform, which ranks them by sales instead of likes.
- Repeat rate
- The share of buyers who bought again, the sign of an audience that trusts your next product.
- First-visit buyers
- How many buy on their first visit, which for a launch shows how warm the audience arrived.
- Refunds and chargebacks
- Refunds by source, which flag a post that promised more than the product delivers.
06An example
Busiest on Mondays, 14:00–17:00
2.1× the visits of an average three hours. Post around Mon 13:00 to be there as they arrive.
Shades are each hour's average over the times this period holds it, so a weekday that comes round five times doesn't outshine one that comes round four. The totals beside and below are the period's actual sums, not averages.
07Setting up
- Lemon SqueezyAdd tally_visitor_id to each checkout link's custom data from your sales page, so every order links with high confidence.
- StripePayment Links on the sales page are tagged by the snippet in cookie mode, with nothing to code.
- Tag every launch email's links with a UTM campaign, so each send's orders sit on their own row.
08Questions
I sell on Gumroad. Can Tally read my sales?
No. Gumroad isn't read. Visits to your own pages are counted, and clicks from them to a Gumroad page count as clicks to another site, but the sales behind them don't reach Tally.
Are pay-what-you-want orders counted at what the buyer paid?
Yes. The amount paid is read without tax and converted to US cents at the day's European Central Bank rate.
Do free downloads count for anything?
They carry no revenue, but a free download can be a goal, so you can see how many free downloaders later pay.