Make revenue attribution your headline number instead of engagement when three things are true: you have traffic that can be tagged, a record of sales, and a reader who asks about money. Until then, engagement is a perfectly good guide. After that point it becomes a diagnostic that sits under the revenue line.
TLDR: Run three tests. Can you tag links? Can you see where a sale came from? Does your reader ask about revenue? Three yeses mean attribute. Fewer means keep engagement as the headline and fix the missing piece first. Set up UTMs and a source field before anything else.
Mydrop pricing check, September 2026: the entry paid plans of the eight tools most often compared with Mydrop run from $6 per channel (Buffer) and $25 a month (Later) to $99 per user (Hootsuite) and $79 per seat (Sprout Social), read on each vendor's pricing page. Mydrop is free to start, then $19 a month flat, not per seat. Full table on Mydrop's compare pages.
Test 1: can you tag the traffic?
Revenue attribution starts with a link you can trace. If your posts send people to a page, add UTM parameters to every link: the platform as the source, "social" as the medium and the campaign name.
Keep one naming pattern in a sheet, such as utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=spring-offer. Mix up the capitalisation and one campaign turns into three rows in your reports.
If your posts do not send people anywhere, because you sell through DMs or in person, move to test 2 and track enquiries instead.
Test 2: can you see where a sale came from?
Tagging is only half the job. The sale needs a field that remembers the source. That can be a CRM source field, a column in a sales sheet or a "how did you hear about us" question on the order form.
If you cannot do this yet, set it up this week. It is the single biggest step toward attribution, and it costs nothing. For the technical gaps that crop up, see fixing UTM data gaps.
Test 3: does your reader ask about revenue?
If your boss or client asks "what did it make?", engagement will not answer. If they ask "is the content on brand?", it can. Match the metric to the question, not to what is easy to export.
The scorecard: where are you on the scale
| Stage | What you have | Headline metric | What to add next |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Posting | Regular posts, no tracking | Engagement rate | UTM links |
| 2. Tagging | Tagged links, clicks in analytics | Link clicks | Source field on leads |
| 3. Tracing | Source recorded on leads and sales | Leads and sales by source | Cost per lead |
| 4. Comparing | Cost and revenue per channel | Return per channel | Budget moves by return |
Most small teams sit at stage 1 or 2. Moving up one stage is a realistic goal for a quarter.
Keep engagement, but give it a new job
Engagement does not disappear. It becomes the early warning that tells you why revenue moved. If sales dip and engagement held, look at the offer or the page. If both dropped, look at the content.
It also needs context. In Mydrop's September 2026 data, the median engagement rate per post was 3.1% on Instagram, 3.0% on TikTok and 1.1% on Facebook. A post at 2% is not failing; it is normal. Use the median as the line, not a hunch. The 10-minute engagement to ROI audit shows a fast way to join the two.
Do not over-attribute
Social often assists a sale that other channels close. Someone sees a post, searches your name a week later and buys through a Google ad. A last-click report gives all the credit to the ad.
Two protections:
- Report both "first touch" and "last touch" if your tool allows it.
- Add a line to the report: "Social also influenced sales we cannot trace directly." Say it plainly, do not invent a number for it.
This keeps the report honest, and a trusted report survives budget season.
What Mydrop covers and what it does not
Mydrop shows the engagement and click side: per-post and per-platform metrics in Performances, with benchmark comparison across profiles, and white-label PDF reports with share links. It does not hold your sales data, so revenue attribution comes from joining those click numbers with your CRM or sheet.
Use link-in-bio pages with tagged links so every profile click arrives with a source. For the reporting layout, see moving reporting from reach to revenue.
Next step: tag every link posted this week
Create the UTM naming sheet today, tag every link you post this week, and add a source field to your lead form. In four weeks you will have enough rows to run the three tests honestly.
Google review
Trustpilot review
Product Hunt comment
