Glossary · Money · also verified incremental revenue, incremental lift
What is incremental revenue?
Incremental revenue is the revenue a change caused, over and above what the store would have earned without it. It is measured by comparing shoppers who received the change with a randomly assigned holdback who did not: the difference in revenue per session between the two groups, multiplied by the sessions that received the change, counted from orders that actually happened.
- Reviewed 6 October 2026
In more detail
The word that matters is caused. Revenue that arrived after a change is not incremental unless it would not have arrived without it, and only a randomised comparison running at the same time separates the two. A before-and-after comparison mixes the change with seasonality, promotions and traffic mix.
Verified incremental revenue adds a second condition: the figure comes from real orders against a live holdback after the change has gone live, not from multiplying a test’s estimated lift across a year. It is usually smaller than the projection, and it holds up when someone checks it.
Report it with an interval, not a single number. A holdback is small by design, so the estimate is honest only when its uncertainty is shown.
Key points
- Revenue caused by the change, not revenue that followed it.
- Needs a randomised holdback running at the same time.
- Counted from real orders, reported with its uncertainty.
How Liftable relates
Related terms
Guides that go deeper
- Testing · 7 minCan you automate conversion optimisation end to end?Five of the six steps in conversion optimisation can run without a person. The sixth should not, and the difference matters before you buy anything.Read
- Testing · 7 minHow to test a fix without breaking your live storeTest through a route that never edits your theme’s code, read the change first, run one test per surface, keep the rollback to one switch. The safe sequence.Read
Last reviewed against the product on 6 October 2026.
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