Is It a Traffic Problem—or the Wrong Traffic?

How to Use Your Shopify and Klaviyo Data to Diagnose What’s Really Going On

When your ecommerce store isn’t making the sales you want, it’s easy to panic. Maybe you think you need more traffic. Or maybe you assume your emails aren’t working. Or your offer isn’t converting.

But what if the real issue is something simpler—and easier to fix?

In this post, we’ll show you how to use your Shopify and Klaviyo data to answer the actual question behind most stuck sales:

Do I have a traffic problem… or do I just have the wrong traffic?

We’ll walk you through a real example from Inner Circle e-commerce coach Melissa Davies of Bike Pretty, and show you the exact metrics we used to help her uncover what’s working—and what needs a tune-up.

Step 1: Do You Have Enough Traffic?

The first thing we looked at was Melissa’s total sessions in Shopify over the last 90 days.

She had 47,387 sessions over 90 days—that’s more than 15,000 visits per month. The baseline we look for is 3,000/month, so she’s well above that.

Bottom line: She doesn’t have a traffic volume problem.

Step 2: Check Your Conversion Funnel

Next, we checked her conversion rates through each step of the funnel.

Here’s what we saw:

• Add to Cart: 1.68%
  
• Reached Checkout: 1%
  
• Completed Purchase: 0.44%

For a store with a higher Average Order Value (Melissa’s is $161), these numbers aren’t bad. But we typically want to see about 50% of customers who reach checkout complete the purchase.

There may be a little friction in the checkout process.

We explored a few possible culprits:

• Shipping threshold might not feel like a good enough deal
  
• Sales tax (especially for California shoppers) might be causing sticker shock
  
• Her Buy Now button might be bypassing the cart—and missing important info (or discount logic)

Step 3: Is Your Traffic Qualified?

Once we ruled out volume and checkout friction, we asked: Are the people coming to the site the right people?

To find out, we looked at her popup submit rate inside Klaviyo. Melissa runs a giveaway popup sitewide to incentivize new subscribers.

In the past 90 days:

• Viewed: 35,000+ times
  
• Submit Rate: 3.91%
  
• New Subscribers: ~1,400

While 3.91% isn’t terrible, it’s a little low for a giveaway-style popup. We often see giveaway popups convert at 5% or higher.

So why the difference?

Melissa’s products occasionally go viral—especially her “silly” helmets like the wig helmet or the traffic cone helmet. That attention drives a lot of eyeballs… but not all of them are ideal buyers.

“I think I do get poor traffic,” Melissa shared, “but I tend to get that traffic organically.”

Here’s the important part: She’s okay with that. Because she has a system in place to turn the right people into customers—and let the rest fall away.

Step 4: Layer in Smart Tweaks

Melissa’s doing a lot of things right. Her automated email flows are driving 35–40% of revenue, and she’s running a warm traffic ad with an 8% popup submit rate—twice as high as her organic traffic.

With that context, we suggested a few small optimizations to build on her existing success:

• Add a secondary popup for returning visitors who are already on the list
  
• AB test dollars off vs. percentage off vs. giveaway
  
• Use Klaviyo’s “Sales by Signup Form” report to measure which popups are leading to actual purchases

These aren’t major overhauls. They’re low-effort changes that could help her capture more conversions from traffic she’s already getting.

Step 5: Don’t Rush to Fix What Isn’t Broken

At one point, Melissa noticed a drop in revenue from her email flows. Her first instinct was to blame the flow—but when she checked deeper, she realized she hadn’t reposted her two best-performing Facebook posts. And those posts were her biggest lead drivers.

Once she reposted them? The email sales bounced back.

“I regularly hear from my customers that they’ve wanted this for years,” Melissa said. “I think people come back a lot before they buy.”

She didn’t need to overhaul her strategy. She just needed to repeat what was already working.

Takeaway: Look at the Right Metrics Before You Pivot

Before you change your offer, redo your branding, or rewrite your emails—pause.

Look at:

• Sessions per month – If under 3,000, you need more traffic.
  
• Add to Cart rate – If it’s below 1%, you might be attracting the wrong audience.
  
• Popup submit rate – If it’s below 3%, test a stronger incentive or improve targeting.
  
• Checkout drop-off – Could indicate friction or surprise charges.

You might just be one screen share away from seeing exactly what needs to change.

Want Help With This?

Inside the Inner Circle, we walk our members through this exact analysis using our Traffic Bootcamp framework.

It’s not about guessing—it’s about using the numbers you already have to make smarter decisions that grow your sales and your profit.

Tap HERE to learn more about the Inner Circle.

Want to watch the episode instead? Check it out below!

RELATED LINKS:

How To Get Affordable, Quality Traffic

https://thesocialsalesgirls.com/how-to-get-affordable-quality-traffic-episode-235/

2x Your leads from the traffic you have

https://thesocialsalesgirls.com/2x-your-leads-from-the-traffic-you-have-episode-139/

Do you have the wrong traffic? A quick way to tell

https://thesocialsalesgirls.com/do-you-have-the-wrong-traffic-a-quick-way-to-tell-episode-50/

Are you leaving $ on the table? Here’s what you MUST know about Popups

https://thesocialsalesgirls.com/are-you-leaving-on-the-table-episode-27/