There are a few different ways that you can access your Lifetime Value (LTV) metrics within Polar. Polar's basic definition for LTV is:
(Gross Sales - Discounts - Returns + Shipping + Tax generated in Customer Lifespan) ÷ Customers
Keep in mind that each method of viewing your LTV will yield slightly different metrics based on small discrepancies in Polar's calculations for various LTV metrics you can access in the app.
Method 1) View the "LTV" metric in your Key Indicators Dashboard
Within your Key Indicators Dashboard, you have access to a basic "LTV" metric. The LTV metric in the Key Indicators Dashboard does NOT take Customer Lifespan into account, but DOES take the date range into account. As you adjust your date range, this metric will also adjust based on the customer first order date. Keep in mind that this same logic applies in Custom Reports.
This metric within your Key Indicators dashboard will adjust with the date range.
Method 2) View the "X Day LTV" metric in your Key Indicators Dashboard
Within your Key Indicators Dashboard, you have access to 5 different time-bound LTV metrics: 30 Day LTV, 60 Day LTV, 90 Day LTV, 180 Day LTV, and 360 Day LTV. These time-bound LTV metrics in the Key Indicators Dashboard DO take Customer Lifespan into account (based on the metric you have selected), and DO take the date range into account. Keep in mind that this same logic also applies in Custom Reports.
These metrics within your Key Indicators dashboard will adjust with the date range.
Keep in mind that in order to see data for these metrics, you must have a date range set of at least the time-bound number of days in your metrics. For example, if you're looking at 360 Day LTV but only have the date range set to the last 6 months, this metric will populate as zero.
In this example, the date range is set to the past 180 days, hence why the 360 Day LTV is not populating.
In this example, the date range is set to the past 365 days, hence why the 360 Day LTV is populating.
Method 3) View the LTV Summary metric in the Retention tab
Within your Retention tab, you can see your overall LTV Summary at the top of the dashboard. The LTV metric in your Retention tab DOES take Customer Lifespan into account (which you can customize yourself), but does NOT take the date range into account. With that said, the date range filter does NOT apply to the LTV Summary metrics within the retention tab, and therefore those metrics will not adjust as you increase or decrease your date range.
These metrics only change as you adjust the Customer Lifespan - not the date range.
Method 4) View the Historical Cumulative LTV graph in the Retention tab
Within your Retention tab, you can also see a graph that show the historical cumulative LTV evolution of a given cohort of customers, based on the customer lifespan that you have set within the graph. This graph visualizes how LTV changes over time as your customers have been with you for longer, in each subsequent month after their first purchase. As you increase your date range on this dashboard, you'll also see more months worth of data populate as additional data points on the X axis.
Keep in mind that you're still only viewing one cohort of customers at a time in this graph - and that the total bucket of customers you're viewing doesn't change; rather, you're able to analyze the changes in LTV for that same cohort as time passes.
In the example below, we're viewing the LTV changes for the cohort of customers that have been at the store for 181 days or less.
