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What does the setup card at the top of the Dashboard mean?

On a new store, the setup card shows whether visits and orders are coming in, how far your setup is and the one step to do next.

The four states of the card

While your store is new, a card sits at the top of the Dashboard, under the greeting. It tells you whether TrueROAS is receiving visits and orders from your store and what is left to set up. The same card shows at the top of the Ads Manager and of a few pages under Analysis, such as Creative Lab and LTV.

TrueROAS checks your store each time you open TrueROAS. A visit counts as recent when it came in during the last 12 hours. The title of the card tells you where you are:

  • Setup Required: no recent visit has come in from your store. The card reads Complete the remaining steps to start tracking your performance.
  • Installation Complete - Data Starting Now!: shows instead of Setup Required for 24 hours after you install TrueROAS on your store, click its install button or copy its install link, until a visit comes in. The card reads You've completed the most crucial step, Data will start appearing shortly and Your dashboard will populate with insights soon.
  • Recently Installed - Waiting for Orders: visits are coming in, but no order has reached TrueROAS yet. The card reads Script is reporting pageviews, Order update will appear after next order and Waiting for first order. Shopify stores skip this state, because Shopify sends their orders to TrueROAS through the TrueROAS app. They move on to Setup Complete as soon as a recent visit has come in.
  • Setup Complete: visits are coming in and your orders are tracked. The card reads Orders are now tracking. In the first 24 hours after the store was added, the title is Setup Complete - Well Done!, with Setup completed and the date the store was added.

Most cards also show the Installed date and the date and time of your Last visit. The Setup Complete card also shows the date and time of the Last order update. Once your past orders are imported, a line such as 1,250 historical orders imported replaces the last line of the card.

The progress bar and the next step

The Setup Required, Recently Installed - Waiting for Orders and Setup Complete cards show a bar with how far you are, for example 61% complete, and the one step to do next, for example Next: Connect ad accounts. The steps come in this order:

  1. Connect store: your store is added to TrueROAS.
  2. Script reporting: a recent visit has come in.
  3. Order updates active: your orders are reaching TrueROAS. On a Shopify store, this step counts as done once a recent visit has come in.
  4. Connect ad accounts: an ad account from Meta, Google, TikTok or Pinterest is connected.
  5. Set up Conversion API: Conversion API sends your orders to Meta, Google or TikTok. This step counts as done when neither Meta nor Google is connected.

The steps do not count equally and the total stops at 100%, so the bar can reach 100% and disappear while a step such as Set up Conversion API is still open. Whether Meta CAPI is running shows in its own bar. See What does the Meta CAPI bar at the top of the Dashboard mean?.

Continue Setup and the install buttons

Continue Setup opens the Setup TrueROAS panel on the left of the screen, where you work through the steps without leaving the page. On the Setup Complete card the button goes away once the bar reaches 100%. Until setup is done, the Setup Progress button at the bottom of the screen opens the same panel, also after the card is gone.

To install TrueROAS from the Setup Required card:

  1. Click Go to Shopify App Store for a Shopify store, or Install Woo Plugin for a WooCommerce store. A new tab opens with the TrueROAS app for your Shopify store, or with the plugin search for TrueROAS in your WordPress admin.
  2. Install TrueROAS in that tab.
  3. Come back to TrueROAS and reload the page once your store has had its first visits. The card then moves on to the next state.

To copy the install link instead, click here after Or copy the install URL under the button. You will see Copied to app install URL! For Shopify and WooCommerce stores, Continue Setup sits under the install button as a plain text button. Stores on other platforms only get Continue Setup.

When the card goes away

The card stays while setup is not complete, however old your store is. Once setup is complete, it goes away 24 hours after the store was added to TrueROAS. The 24 hours count from when the store was added, not from when setup was finished, so if setup took more than a day, the card goes away as soon as setup is complete.

Because the card checks your store every time you open TrueROAS, it can come back on an older store when visits stop coming in: after 12 hours without a visit, it shows Setup Required again. See Why are my newest orders or ad spend not showing yet?.

On a new Shopify store, the Import Historical Orders card can take its place until your past orders are imported. See How do I bring in orders from before I installed TrueROAS?.

Before you add a store

A login without a store sees No Stores Added in the card's place. Click Add New Store to open the Setup TrueROAS panel and connect your store.

Until then, the numbers you see are samples, not yours. The Dashboard cards show sample sales, ad spend and costs, Top Creatives shows sample ads, the AI Summary shows a sample text and the Ads Manager table lists sample campaigns.

Good to know

  • The card looks at the visits and orders of your whole store.
  • It has no close button, so you cannot hide it while setup is not complete.
  • Next: always names the first open step in the order above, even when you work on a later step first.