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Job boards, directories and marketplaces

For directories: which channels bring paying listings, and what the listings get back.

A directory earns from the businesses and makers listed in it: a fee to submit, a featured spot, a yearly plan to stay on top, while visitors browse for free. Tally ties each listing payment to the lister's visit and counts the clicks out to each listed site, so you can see where paying listers come from and what you deliver to them.

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01How they sell

  • One-offA fee to submit or fast-track a listing, and featured placement for a set number of weeks.
  • SubscriptionMonthly or yearly plans that keep a listing featured or verified, renewing while the lister sees value.
  • FreemiumA free basic listing, with paid upgrades for placement, links or extra details.

02Payments it reads

  • StripeSubmission fees and featured spots through Stripe Checkout or Payment Links on the submit page, and plans as subscriptions.
  • Lemon SqueezyDirectory owners who want tax handled sell listings through Lemon Squeezy checkouts.
  • PolarDirectories of developer tools sell featured listings through Polar.

What Tally can't read

  • Affiliate commissions from listed products aren't read, though the clicks out to them are counted.
  • Display ad revenue on directory pages isn't read.
  • What a visitor does on a listed site after clicking out isn't seen; only the click is counted.

03Where buyers come from

  • SearchVisitors search for a category; listers search for where to submit, landing on the submit page.
  • XMakers share directories they've been listed in, which brings other makers who want the same spot.
  • Launch communitiesMakers preparing a launch look for places to list, so posts in launch communities send people ready to pay a submission fee.
  • AI assistantsPeople asking an assistant for tools in a category follow citations to directory pages, in a channel of their own.

04What Tally answers

  1. How many clicks does a featured listing send?

    Clicks on links to other sites are counted, which is the figure listers want before they renew; marking the visit button with data-fast-goal also puts those clicks in the goals view with the revenue of the visitors who made them.

    Goals and funnels

  2. Which listers renew their featured plan?

    Lifetime value counts every listing payment under the lister's first source, with renewals and repeat rate.

    Lifetime value

  3. Where do paying listers come from?

    The breakdowns put revenue beside each source and page, so the few visitors who pay to list can be traced, apart from the browsers.

    Sources with revenue

  4. Are AI crawlers indexing our category pages?

    Once a server snippet reports them, the crawlers view counts AI crawlers' requests by crawler, operator, purpose and page, so you can see which categories they read.

    AI crawlers

  5. Do makers pay to list on their first visit?

    Path to purchase gives the share who buy on their first visit, the median time for the rest and the pages buyers saw before paying.

    Path to purchase

05Numbers worth watching

Renewals
Featured-plan renewals by first source, the sign listers get enough from the spot.
Goal conversion
Clicks out to listed sites over visitors to listing pages, the value you deliver.
First-visit buyers
The share of listers who pay on their first visit, high when they came to submit.
Visitors from AI assistants
Visitors sent by AI assistants and the listing revenue behind them.

06An example

Example

Path to purchase

Last 30 days · 105 of 124 new sales, the ones linked to a visitor

Median time to buy

3days

from their first visit

Median visits

3visits

the one they paid in included

Bought on the first visit

12%

13 of 105

Pages before buying

11

median pages viewed

Where buyers came from, and who closed the sale

105 new sales: where each buyer first came from, and the source credited with the sale.

50% of new sales were credited to the source that first brought the buyer in. Hover or focus a flow for its numbers.

  1. Googlecredited toGoogle26
  2. x.comcredited tox.com10
  3. Other (3 sources)credited toOther (3 sources)10
  4. Directcredited toOther (3 sources)9
  5. ChatGPTcredited toChatGPT9
  6. Other (3 sources)credited toNewsletter9
  7. Redditcredited toReddit8
  8. Googlecredited toNewsletter6

6 smaller flows in the table below.

Show the flows as a table
105 new sales: where each buyer first came from, and the source credited with the sale.
Brought them inCredited with the saleNew salesShare
GoogleGoogle2625%
x.comx.com1010%
Other (3 sources)Other (3 sources)1010%
DirectOther (3 sources)99%
ChatGPTChatGPT99%
Other (3 sources)Newsletter99%
RedditReddit88%
GoogleNewsletter66%
DirectGoogle55%
x.comGoogle55%
RedditGoogle33%
DirectReddit22%
ChatGPTGoogle22%
Other (3 sources)ChatGPT1<1%

Time from first visit to purchase

  1. 13Same visit: 13 sales (12%), bought in their first visit
  2. 13Same day: 13 sales (12%), a later visit, under 24 hours after the first
  3. 301–3 days: 30 sales (29%), 1 to 3 days after the first visit
  4. 194–7 days: 19 sales (18%), 4 to 7 days after the first visit
  5. 151–2 weeks: 15 sales (14%), 8 to 14 days after the first visit
  6. 102–4 weeks: 10 sales (10%), 15 to 28 days after the first visit
  7. 51–3 months: 5 sales (5%), 29 to 90 days after the first visit
  8. 03+ months: 0 sales (0%), 91 days or more after the first visit

Pages buyers saw before paying

Share of the 105 buyers who viewed each page before paying

  1. /pricing96%, 101 of 105 buyers
  2. /71%, 75 of 105 buyers
  3. /signup63%, 67 of 105 buyers
  4. /docs38%, 40 of 105 buyers
  5. /blog/stripe-fees26%, 28 of 105 buyers
  6. /compare21%, 23 of 105 buyers
  7. /changelog8%, 9 of 105 buyers
  8. /blog/launch-week5%, 6 of 105 buyers

Only new sales count here. Renewals and upgrades belong to the visit that won the subscription, so counting them would count that journey again.

Fig. 1Path to purchase on the example site. For a directory, read the share of first-visit buyers: listers often arrive ready to submit.

07Setting up

  1. Next.jsIn a Next.js directory, add the tag to the root layout and the crawler snippet to middleware.
  2. StripePass the visitor's id in Checkout metadata when the submit form creates the session, so each listing payment links.
  3. Add data-fast-goal to each listing's visit button, so clicks out also count as a goal.

08Questions

  • Can I show listers how many clicks they got?

    Tally counts the clicks out and the goals you mark per page. Sharing them with listers is up to you, for example through the API.

  • Our directory is free for visitors. Whose payments are read?

    Only listers' payments through your connected provider; visitors are counted as visitors.

  • Are submission fees refunded on rejection counted?

    Yes. The refund is counted against the payment it reverses and the source credited for it.

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