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How to tell if your WooCommerce coupons actually make money

WooCommerce can tell you how many times a coupon was used. It cannot tell you whether the campaign behind it made or lost money - because a coupon is a code, while a campaign is a question: "was that promotion worth the discount?"

The unit you actually need: the campaign

A single coupon code says nothing on its own. Grouped into a campaign - "Black Friday 2025", "influencer Anna", "exit-intent popup" - the numbers start answering questions:

Orders - how many sales the campaign touched.
Discount given - what those orders cost you in markdowns.
Refunds - revenue that came back; coupon campaigns attract return-prone buyers more often than you think.
Net revenue - orders minus discounts minus refunds. This is the number that decides whether the campaign repeats.

A code can show strong usage while its campaign quietly loses money on refunds and deep discounts.

Campaign comparison dashboard with per-campaign revenue — The campaign report: orders, revenue, discounts, refunds, and net revenue per campaign.

Questions a campaign report answers

Which channel's coupons convert to profitable orders, not just orders? An influencer code with a 25% discount can bring volume at negative margin.
Do discounted orders stay below your regular AOV, or does the coupon pull the basket up?
Does a campaign eat its own tail - customers who would have paid full price using the code?

Campaign detail with per-coupon metrics — Drilling into a campaign: coupon-level results.

Setting it up

The workflow that works:

Decide your campaigns before issuing codes - each gets its own prefix or naming rule ("BF25-", "anna-").
Group existing coupons into campaigns - no need to recreate codes that are already live.
Run the report monthly or after each campaign ends; compare campaigns on net revenue per order, not raw order count.

Campaign selector on the coupon edit screen — Assigning an existing coupon to a campaign.

The metrics that mislead

Usage count alone - a widely shared coupon can be your worst performer per order.
Gross revenue without discounts - inflates every campaign.
Ignoring refunds - promo-driven buyers return more; net revenue is the honest number.

Our Coupon Campaign Reports plugin does the grouping and math on your existing coupons: campaigns, orders, discounts, refunds, and net revenue per promotion - without changing how the codes work.