The Dashboard shows two numbers that look alike: Opt-ins and, under it, emails captured. They measure different things, so they are rarely equal. Knowing what each counts makes your stats easy to read.
Where to find it:
Go to Free List Building and click the Dashboard tab. The Opt-ins card shows the opt-in count in large figures and the number of emails captured under it. Hover over the card for a short explanation. The Lists tab shows the same pair as Total Opt-ins and Emails Captured.
What each number counts:
- Page Views: visits to your funnels' opt-in pages.
- Opt-ins: arrivals on your funnels' download pages. This is how opt-ins are counted for providers whose forms post straight to the provider, such as AWeber or a Custom HTML Form.
- Emails captured: email addresses your site actually received and passed to your autoresponder (the Collected Emails list on the Lists tab).
- Conversion Rate: Opt-ins divided by Page Views.
Why Opt-ins can be higher:
- A subscriber who opens the download page again, for example from a bookmark or their browser history, is counted again.
- Someone who shares the download page address counts each visit.
- With a Custom HTML Form, the form sends the email straight to your provider, so your site does not receive a copy, while the visit to the download page is still counted.
What is never counted:
- Your own visits while logged in to WordPress as an administrator.
- Search engine bots, link preview bots, uptime monitors and similar tools.
These are left out of Page Views and Opt-ins automatically, so you can preview your funnels as often as you like. Counts saved by versions older than 1.5.99 may still include earlier admin visits and bots.
The setting in Settings:
In Settings, Tracking & Analytics, the box Exclude logged-in administrators from page view tracking keeps logged-in visits out of the detailed page view log as well. The Dashboard numbers leave admin visits out either way.
A real example:
Your Site's Dashboard shows 1833 Opt-ins and 1669 emails captured over six weeks. The difference is mostly readers who came back to the download page later. Sam reads Emails Captured as the true count of new leads, and Opt-ins as how often the download pages were used.
Tips:
- For exact list growth, look at Emails Captured and your autoresponder's own numbers.
- Compare funnels with Conversion Rate rather than raw totals. See Built-in Funnel Analytics.