Read the deposit report from the money backwards

Start with the deposit total. Then check the FTDs, the repeat depositors and the regs that brought them in. That order lets you see whether the test brought paying players, whether they returned and whether a cheerful registration count is doing all the work in the headline. The column headings should let you make that read on your own.

The cashier comes first

A rising reg count can wait. The deposit total is the sum of all successful deposits included in the report window. It can include first deposits and repeat deposits, so the heading needs to tell you whose payments you are reading.

There are two ways to group the money. One follows players brought in by the test and includes their payments inside a stated window. The other shows all attributed payments completed during the reporting dates, including payments from older players. The first shows what the test’s players added; the second follows money arriving during the reporting dates. Say which view the report uses.

Deposits are money paid into player accounts. They aren’t casino revenue. The amount wagered, withdrawals, remaining balances and the brand’s financial result sit elsewhere. A strong deposit total is useful, but it cannot carry a claim that the test was profitable. Calling that amount “revenue” makes the report say something the cashier never told you.

Only successful deposits go into this total. Pending attempts stay pending. Declined attempts contribute no successful deposited amount. If a payment is later reversed, the correction needs to remain visible. The same goes for currency: either show each currency separately or state the conversion rule before adding amounts together.

If the report adds an average, check its name against the deposit glossary. “Average deposit” leaves the calculation open until someone supplies the denominator.

Five rows give the report its backbone

Start with regs, FTDs, repeats, deposit total and reg-to-FTD rate. A reg is a registration. An FTD is a player’s first successful deposit; FTDs are the number of players who made one. That first deposit is determined across the player’s entire history with the brand.

A returning depositor doesn’t become new again because they used another link or appeared in a new export. Their latest payment may belong to the test under the agreed attribution rule, but it cannot create another FTD. This matters whenever the registration report and the payment report come from different systems: the payment export still needs the brand’s earlier history.

InfluEdge’s weekly report covers regs, FTDs, deposit total and reg-to-FTD rate, by geo and creator type. Repeats and weekly cohorts can be added on the brand’s request. The table above explains how to read those measures. Extra checks against the cashier are work the brand and agency need to arrange when a figure needs explaining.

The first line we want to read names the successful deposit total, included player group, dates and currency.

A short note beside a changed definition beats a quiet rewrite. If a correction changes an earlier total, the reader needs to see the old figure, the corrected figure and the reason.

A rate needs the same regs on both sides

The reg-to-FTD rate follows one registration cohort towards its first deposits. Using the nearest reg and deposit counts on a dashboard can mix players from different periods. The arithmetic can be perfect while the answer belongs to a group nobody intended to measure.

The difference needs no complicated explanation. The extra players were outside the selected regs. They may matter elsewhere in the report, but moving them into this rate makes the test look stronger without changing what its own players did.

Reg-to-FTD rate = FTDs ÷ regs from the same cohort × 100

Can every FTD in this rate be traced to a reg in this cohort? That is the check to put to whoever prepared the report. For how long to follow the group and how to compare weeks fairly, use cohorts.

Repeat transactions can make the player count look busy

A repeat depositor is a player who makes at least one successful deposit after their FTD within the chosen window. A repeat transaction is each of those later payments. One repeat depositor can add several transactions. Putting them into the same “repeats” cell is how a narrow group starts looking broad.

Now you can see what the repeats added. The split shows how many players returned, how often they paid and how much they added. A larger repeat-deposit sum with the same repeat-depositor count points to a different pattern from a larger amount spread across more returning players.

The repeat-depositor share here follows the original FTD group. Dropping players who did not return from that group would flatter the percentage. The row should let the reader rebuild the result from the counts, without guessing who disappeared between exports.

A large total can lean on a small part of the group

The headline amount deserves a second look. Did most players contribute something, or did a few large payments carry the test? Neither answer changes the cashier’s total. It changes how much weight you can put on that total when deciding what to do next.

The €1,200 belongs in the report. Removing it would understate the result. But the next test has no promise of bringing another player with the same pattern. The discussion has to hold both points at once: the money arrived, and part of the result depended on one person.

Look at this within the agreed geo and creator type. Combining different geos can hide a weak group behind a stronger one, while a blended average gives no clear answer about which test to expand.

For a traffic-quality concern, the traffic checks show which player patterns deserve a closer look. For a missing payment, follow the transaction through tracking. Those checks follow the cause of the concern: who carried the amount, or which payment disappeared.

The result should support a choice

A report that says “good volume” has stopped too early. Which geo and creator type produced the FTDs? What did those players deposit? Did repeats broaden the paying group, or did a few players carry the amount? Those answers should make the next choice easier to defend.

At the end of the test, there are three choices: scale, change the geo or creator type, or stop. Scale when the agreed goal and the rest of the deposit picture support it. Change the pair when the figures point to a better question for the next test. Stop when the result gives the brand no reason to keep testing that pair.

If the payment records disagree, resolve the gap before choosing. A changed deposit total may change the decision, so the correction belongs beside the figures used to make it.

The reg headline shouldn’t get the last word.