Confirmation rate
Confirmation rate is the share of orders where the customer agreed to buy after you contacted them, out of all orders submitted through your site in the same period. It's calculated before shipping and measures the quality of your ads, order form, and contact speed—not your delivery company.
Also calledorder confirmation rateconfirmation percentage
The formula
Confirmation rate = (Confirmed orders ÷ Submitted orders) × 100
- Numerator—Confirmed orders: orders where the customer explicitly agreed to receive and pay for it, making it ready to ship.
- Denominator—Submitted orders: every order form sent from your site in the same period, including duplicates, fakes, and unreachable numbers.
- Denominator is submitted orders only. Using any other denominator gives a meaningless number.
Worked example
A week of confirmation in Morocco
- 1Submitted orders in the week: 240.
- 2Confirmed orders after contact: 144.
- 3Confirmation rate: 144 ÷ 240 = 0.60 → 60%.
- 4Ad spend in the same period: 7,200 MAD.
- 5Cost per submitted order: 7,200 ÷ 240 = 30 MAD.
- 6True cost per confirmed order: 7,200 ÷ 144 = 50 MAD.
Takeaway: A 60% confirmation rate pushes your true cost from 30 to 50 MAD per order. Every confirmation point you gain cuts this cost with zero extra ad spend.
What it means in practice
The biggest driver of this rate is time. A buyer who submitted an order while excited about an ad cools down within hours. A call in the first hour catches a decision still standing; a call the next day catches someone who forgot they ordered or bought the same thing elsewhere.
The second driver is honest landing-page copy. If you state the final price, delivery fees, and delivery time clearly before the form, each order comes from someone who accepted the terms. Hiding the price inflates submitted orders and tanks confirmation rate, so you pay more ads for fewer confirmed orders.
Calculate the rate separately for each ad source and each product, not your whole account. Usually one ad brings cheap orders that don't confirm, pulls the overall average down, and hides good performance elsewhere.
Common mistakes
- Mixing up the denominator: dividing confirmed by shipped or delivered orders instead of submitted, which inflates the rate to nearly 100%.
- Counting an order "confirmed" just because the phone wasn't answered yet, instead of marking it pending until explicit approval comes.
- Measuring the rate across your entire account instead of by product and ad source, hiding the ad that brings orders that don't confirm.
- Ignoring duplicate orders from the same person in the denominator, which lowers the rate for a technical reason unrelated to campaign quality.
Questions and answers
What's the difference between confirmation rate and delivery rate?
Confirmation rate is calculated before shipping: confirmed orders over submitted orders, measuring ad and contact quality. Delivery rate is calculated after: delivered parcels over shipped parcels, measuring your delivery company and customer intent. Their denominators are different—don't mix or add them.
How do I practically raise confirmation rate?
Call as soon as the order arrives, try three times at different times, and send a text if there's no answer. State the final price, delivery fees, and delivery time on your landing page. Ask for one correct phone number instead of many fields filled randomly.
Does a pending order count in my calculation?
It counts in the denominator because it's a submitted order, and doesn't count in the numerator because it's not confirmed. Keep it in its own status called "under review" with a clear deadline like three tries in two days, then move it to cancelled so the number doesn't hang forever.
Can a very high confirmation rate be a red flag?
Yes, when it comes from very few orders or when you count anything that isn't an explicit refusal as confirmed. The result is shipping to people who didn't actually agree, which raises returns and turns cost into two-way shipping with zero revenue.