How the dashboard metrics are calculated
Every tile on the dashboard's Overview tab has a short line under its value. That sub-line is the tile's definition: it says what is counted and, for a ratio, what is divided by what.
How it works
Two kinds of numbers sit side by side on the dashboard:
- Tapper-tracked: clicks and blocks. Tapper counts these itself, through its own tracking: the monitoring script on your site and, for Google Ads, the tracking template Tapper sets on your account.
- Ad-platform reported: spend, cost per click, conversions, cost per acquisition and ROAS. These come from your connected ad accounts.
Blocks are counted as distinct visitors, clicks as clicks. One visitor can click your ads several times, so a visitor who clicked five times and was blocked adds five to Total Clicks and one to Total Blocks. No multiplier and no "clicks saved" estimate is applied anywhere.
The tiles follow the date range and filters at the top of the page (a card that ignores a filter says so with a chip), and the data behind them updates every 4 hours. See Dashboard filters, date ranges and time zone.
Traffic & protection
| Tile | Sub-line on screen | What it counts |
|---|---|---|
| Total Clicks | "Tapper-tracked clicks" | Ad clicks Tapper recorded through its own tracking, for the platforms and dates you selected. |
| Valid Clicks | "Clicks − distinct blocked visitors" | Total Clicks minus Total Blocks, never below 0. |
| IP Blocks | "Visitors on an excluded IP" | Distinct visitors whose IP address was excluded. |
| Audience Blocks | "{N} also blocked by IP" | Distinct visitors excluded through an audience. The sub-line says how many of them were also on an excluded IP. |
| Total Blocks | "Distinct visitors from IP and Audience" | Every blocked visitor once, however they were blocked. A visitor blocked both by IP and by audience counts once, so Total Blocks can be lower than IP Blocks plus Audience Blocks. |
| Invalid Traffic % | "Distinct blocked visitors / Clicks" | Total Blocks divided by Total Clicks, capped at 100%. |
| Saved Spend | "Daily blocked visitors × daily CPC" | An estimate: for each day and platform, that day's blocked visitors times that day's average CPC, summed. See Saved Spend: how your savings are estimated. |
Invalid Traffic % is the share of your traffic that came from visitors Tapper flagged. It is not a measure of how well blocking works. Because it divides visitors by clicks, a visitor who clicked many times still counts once on top. The rate varies with your industry, traffic volume, seasonality and competition, so compare it with your own earlier periods rather than with someone else's.
Spend & conversions
| Tile | Sub-line on screen | What it counts |
|---|---|---|
| Total Spend | none | What your connected ad accounts report as spent in the selected dates. |
| Avg CPC | "Spend / {N} ad clicks" or "Spend / ad-platform clicks" | Spend divided by the clicks the ad platform counted, not by Total Clicks. |
| Conversions | "Ad-platform reported" | Conversions as your ad platforms report them. |
| Conversion % | "Ad-platform reported / hard-outcome clicks" | Ad-platform conversions divided by the ad platform's own clicks. Ad platforms can credit more than one conversion to a click, so this rate can go above 100%. |
| Avg CPA | "Spend / Ad-platform reported conversions" | Spend divided by ad-platform conversions. With Meta or TikTok selected, the tile shows no sub-line. |
| ROAS | "Revenue / Spend, connected accounts" | Revenue reported by your connected accounts divided by their spend. Shows a dash (-) when the accounts report no revenue. With TikTok selected, it is not shown for date ranges that start before 7 August 2026. |
The Lift tiles
Below these two groups, a group titled Lift shows Recovered spend, Open recommendations, Impact and related tiles. They are Lift's own estimates, kept separate from Saved Spend and never added to it. Lift on the dashboard explains each one.
Tiles on the other tabs
- Invalid Traffic: Total Blocked ("Distinct blocked visitors") is the same count as Total Blocks, next to IP Blocks, Audience Blocks and Invalid Traffic %.
- Conversions & Spend: Conversion events ("Tracked by Tapper") counts the conversions Tapper records on your site through the conversion script or conversion pages. It is not a second count of your ad-platform conversions and is usually higher; the conversion charts by country, device and OS use it. Avg Cost / Engaged Session reads "Ad spend / Tapper sessions".
- Traffic & Geo and Mobile have their own tiles: see The Conversions & Spend and Traffic & Geo tabs and The Mobile dashboard tab: installs, sessions and MMP metrics.
Charts that break blocks down by block reason or by campaign type can count one visitor more than once (a visitor blocked for more than one reason is counted under each), so their bars can add up to more than Total Blocks. That is expected.
When the workspace is monitoring-only
While a workspace only monitors, nothing is blocked, so the tiles are renamed. The formulas stay the same.
| Blocking label | Monitoring-only label |
|---|---|
| Total Blocks | Total Invalid |
| IP Blocks | Invalid IPs, sub-line "Flagged for IP exclusion, not applied" |
| Audience Blocks | Invalid Audience Exclusion Users |
| Invalid Traffic % sub-line | "Distinct invalid visitors / Clicks" |
| Saved Spend | Wasted Spend, shown in red |
See Monitoring-only mode: why nothing is blocked yet and what changes when blocking starts.
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