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Triple Whale ships with 40+ default widgets and most owners build dashboards with all of them — then never open the dashboard again. Here's how specialists build dashboards that get read every morning.
Who this is forTriple Whale users who have setup + integrations done and now need to build dashboards. Especially relevant if you've tried Triple Whale's default dashboards, found them overwhelming, and want a leaner, decision-oriented setup.
What you'll need
Step 1
Triple Whale's default dashboards are designed for analyst use, not founder use. Hide them so they don't compete for attention with your custom dashboard.
Dashboards → All Dashboards → for each default dashboard you don't use, click the three-dot menu → Hide.
Don't delete (some are recoverable references). Hiding moves them off your sidebar.
Keep visible: only the dashboards YOU built. Every default dashboard you keep visible competes for attention.
Step 2
One dashboard. Six widgets. Read in 60 seconds with coffee. This is the only dashboard you open daily.
Dashboards → + New Dashboard → name it "Morning Coffee."
Widget 1 — Net Revenue (Yesterday vs Same Day Last Week): single number with delta. Tells you "are we ahead or behind."
Widget 2 — Blended ROAS (Last 7 Days): single number with the model = TW Pixel. Tells you "is paid working overall this week."
Widget 3 — Net New Customer Revenue %: shows what % of yesterday's revenue came from net-new customers. Healthy DTC: 40-60%. Falling below 30% = retention-heavy = need more prospecting.
Widget 4 — Spend by Channel (Last 7 Days): horizontal bar chart, Meta vs Google vs TikTok vs others. Tells you where money is going.
Widget 5 — Top 5 Products by Revenue (Last 7 Days): table. Tells you what's selling.
Widget 6 — Pixel Coverage (Last 7 Days): percent of orders with pixel attribution. Watch for sudden drops below 70% — early signal of integration breakage.
Save. Set as your default dashboard (Settings → Default Dashboard).
Step 3
Built for the 15-min weekly review. More depth than Morning Coffee, but still purposeful.
Dashboards → + New → "Weekly Channel Review."
For each major channel (Meta, Google, TikTok, Email), add a 4-widget row: Spend / Revenue (TW Pixel attributed) / Blended ROAS / New Customer Rate.
Add a row at the top showing total: Total Spend / Total Revenue / Blended ROAS / New Customer Rate.
Date filter: Last 7 days, comparing to Previous 7 days.
Use this dashboard every Monday morning for a 15-min review. Look for: which channels improved week-over-week, which deteriorated, which warrant budget reallocation.
Document any decisions in a Notion doc or shared notes — the dashboard tells you WHAT changed, you need a habit for deciding what to do about it.
Step 4
Show which ad creatives are working across Meta and TikTok. This is where Triple Whale's creative analytics earns its fee.
Dashboards → + New → "Creative Performance."
Add widget: "Top 10 Ads by Spend" — Meta + TikTok combined, last 14 days.
Add widget: "Top 10 Ads by Revenue (TW Pixel)" — same filter.
Add widget: "Bottom 10 Ads by ROAS with Spend > $50" — these are your kill candidates.
Add widget: "Creative Categories Performance" if you tagged creatives with categories — shows which formats (UGC, lifestyle, product-focus) win.
Review weekly. Action items: kill bottom 10 (after confirming statistical significance), scale top 3, brief 2-3 new creatives in the dominant winning category.
Step 5
Shows which products are driving revenue and which are dragging margin. Most DTC owners optimize ads without ever looking at product-level performance.
Dashboards → + New → "Product Performance."
Add widget: "Revenue by Product (Last 30 Days)" — top 20 products by revenue.
Add widget: "Gross Profit by Product (Last 30 Days)" — same products, sorted by gross profit. This requires COGS set in Shopify.
Add widget: "Units Sold vs Inventory (Top 20 Products)" — flag any product with under 14 days of inventory based on velocity.
Add widget: "New Customer Revenue by Product" — which products are bringing new customers in vs. which are mostly repeat purchases.
Review monthly. Action items: feature top gross-profit products in ads, push inventory orders for low-stock fast-movers, reduce ad spend on products with low gross profit even if revenue is high.
Step 6
Triple Whale can push a daily summary to Slack. Most founders read Slack 10x more than they open Triple Whale.
Settings → Notifications → Slack → Connect.
OAuth into your Slack workspace.
Configure: which dashboards to push (recommended: Morning Coffee), what time (recommended: 8am your timezone), which channel (private DM to founder works well).
Test the digest. The Slack message should arrive each morning with the 6 Morning Coffee numbers + a link to the full dashboard.
If a number is dramatically off, you act before reading the full dashboard. If everything looks normal, you skip the dashboard and save 5 minutes.
Step 7
Dashboards without a habit are decoration. Set a weekly review block, write down 3 decisions per week.
Every Monday morning, 15-minute block on calendar: "Triple Whale Weekly Review."
Open Weekly Channel Review dashboard. Identify 3 changes from last week. Write them in a doc.
For each change, decide: scale (more budget), shrink (less budget), investigate (more data needed). Write the decision next to the change.
Execute the decisions same day. Don't let analysis without action become a habit — that's where founders burn out on dashboards.
Quarterly: review whether your decisions improved metrics. Adjust your dashboard if widgets aren't driving decisions.
Common mistakes
Building one dashboard with every widget
What goes wrong: Dashboard takes 5 minutes to load and 10 minutes to read. You stop opening it within 2 weeks. The setup time was wasted.
How to avoid: Hard rule: 6-8 widgets per dashboard maximum. Multiple focused dashboards beat one bloated one.
Not setting a default attribution model on the dashboard
What goes wrong: Widgets show different numbers depending on what was selected last. You read inconsistent ROAS across the same dashboard and can't trust any of it.
How to avoid: Set the default attribution model (Settings → Attribution → Default). Every widget inherits unless explicitly overridden.
Building dashboards once and never iterating
What goes wrong: Your business changes (new channel, new product line) but your dashboard doesn't. After 6 months, half the widgets are stale and you read around them.
How to avoid: Quarterly dashboard review: remove widgets you ignore, add widgets that reflect current priorities. 30 minutes per quarter.
Treating dashboards as reporting, not decision tools
What goes wrong: You stare at the dashboard, feel informed, take no action. Three months later, performance hasn't changed.
How to avoid: Pair every weekly review with a written decision log. If you can't write down 1-3 decisions from the dashboard, redesign the dashboard.
Not pushing to Slack or email
What goes wrong: You forget to open Triple Whale for 5 days. By the time you check, a campaign has been bleeding budget for a week.
How to avoid: Settings → Notifications → Slack/Email digest of Morning Coffee dashboard daily at 8am. Triple Whale comes to you.
Building dashboards before COGS is set in Shopify
What goes wrong: Every margin widget shows 100% gross profit. You make decisions on revenue ROAS instead of profit ROAS. High-revenue, low-margin products get over-funded.
How to avoid: Set COGS in Shopify Admin → Products → "Cost per item" for at least 80% of revenue SKUs BEFORE building margin dashboards.
Recap
Done — what's next
How to set up Triple Whale for your Shopify store
Read the next tutorial
Hand it off
The dashboard is the easy part. The hard part is reading it weekly and translating signal into 3 budget decisions every Monday. A vetted DTC specialist runs the weekly review, surfaces decisions, and executes the budget reallocations — typically $400-1,200/mo for ongoing weekly + monthly cadence depending on store size.
See ongoing review rates
3-5 maximum. Morning Coffee (daily), Weekly Channel Review, Creative Performance, Product Performance, and one optional ad-hoc (e.g., Holiday Promo dashboard during BFCM). More than 5 and you'll read none of them.
Build separate dashboards for each role. Founder dashboard is high-level (revenue, ROAS, decisions). Marketing manager dashboard is operational (creative performance, ad-set spend). Each role opens only their own dashboard.
Yes — Dashboards → Share → Public Link generates a read-only URL. Useful for sharing with founders, accountants, or board members who don't need full TW access. Note: anyone with the URL can view, so don't share publicly.
Usually too many widgets querying long date ranges. Reduce widget count to 6-8 OR shorten the default date range (last 7 days instead of last 90 days). Triple Whale also recomputes faster after the first load — try opening twice.
Start with the templates to understand what's possible, then build your custom dashboards. Templates are designed for general use; custom dashboards reflect your specific funnel and decision habits.
Quarterly review at minimum. Major business changes (new channel, new product category, repositioning) trigger immediate rebuild. Don't let dashboards go stale — a dashboard that no longer reflects your business is worse than no dashboard.
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