The owner of a UX design school in Almaty wants "75% of students mastered UX design" on the landing page. A hundred people paid, forty submitted the final assignment and thirty met the criteria. Seventy-five per cent describes only those who submitted. The school has not established everyone else's result.
For this example, take a separate eight-week programme costing 150,000 ₸. All figures are illustrative. The marketer needs two connected tables: what students achieved and what remained from the cohort after teaching, support, refunds and acquisition. Video views cannot supply the second, and payments cannot establish the skill.
Turn the promise into an assignment
Instead of "become an in-demand UX designer", the school describes the work: run a test with users, find where they get stuck and justify the changes to the mock-up. The page shows entry requirements, workload, a sample assignment and the feedback format. Before paying, the person can judge whether the course suits them and whether they can make time for it.
The Eberly Center at Carnegie Mellon recommends aligning objectives, teaching activities and assessment. If the promise is UX design, the final task must require design work. A terminology test can assess terminology; testing with users and revising a mock-up need a different task.
The course designer sets criteria in advance: the share of participants who completed the scenario is calculated, the causes of errors are explained, and the mock-up changes are checked with a repeat test. Students practise on another task and receive feedback during the course. Otherwise, the final assessment asks for something the course did not prepare them to do.
An employment or income promise needs other evidence. Completing an assignment does not replace the profession's remaining requirements. A graduate's story can describe their experience, retaining its circumstances and path; its outcome cannot be assigned to the whole cohort.
Three denominators instead of one percentage
All hundred original buyers have had 90 days since the course began. This group includes people who later received refunds: they stay in the original count so removing inconvenient rows cannot improve the cohort's result.
| Event by day 90 | Students | Share of original cohort |
|---|---|---|
| Started learning | 90 | 90% |
| Watched all required videos | 70 | 70% |
| Submitted the final assignment | 40 | 40% |
| Met the final assignment's criteria | 30 | 30% |
The thirty who succeeded are among the forty who submitted. In our example, watching every video is not an entry requirement for the assignment: someone may already know some material. These rows therefore cannot automatically be treated as a sequential funnel.
There are three measures. Assessment coverage is 40 / 100 = 40%. Success among submitters is 30 / 40 = 75%. A demonstrated result exists for 30 / 100 = 30% of the original cohort. The report needs all three, with their groups named.
For the sixty non-submitters, the result is unknown. They may not have mastered the material, may have known it beforehand, or may have completed the task without sending it to the teacher. Calling them all failures is as unsupported as calling them successes.
A demonstrated skill and a gain in skill are different
The final assignment shows what someone can do at assessment time. A comparable entry task helps examine change: some students may already have had the skill.
Entry and final assessments need the same objective and comparable criteria. Repeating familiar answers can improve a score without transferring the skill to a new problem. The course designer owns assessment content; the analyst keeps each student's results linked.
Even the entry-to-exit difference does not isolate one course's contribution: the person may have studied elsewhere or practised at work. Stating how many students completed the final task is already useful. It does not require attributing everything that happened over those months to the course.
Help depends on where progress stopped
"We haven't seen you for a while" emails reveal little about a student's difficulty. First establish their path: whether they received access, found the first step, began the assignment and read the feedback.
| Observation | What the team investigates |
|---|---|
| First lesson unopened | Access, schedule and clarity of the first step |
| The same assignment rejected several times | The error, explanation of the criterion and practice opportunities |
| A group stops at one module | Instructions, materials and whether the task is manageable |
| Course completed | Applying the skill and the next need |
Establish the reason through conversation or a support request, beyond one analytics event. An unopened lesson cannot establish laziness or a poor-quality lead.
The promised support format has to fit the team's schedule. A school offering group consultations cannot promise everyone a personal mentor. Budget for grading, retries and questions, including obligations after the final lesson.
The course has ended and the graduate no longer logs in: that is normal. During learning, a cohort helps locate a stopping point; buying another course concerns a new need. There is no reason to make graduates log in just to improve activity metrics.
This cohort's money
A hundred students paid 150,000 ₸ each, totalling 15,000,000 ₸. Within the chosen 90 days, five received full refunds, or 750,000 ₸. Teaching and support cost 5,000,000 ₸, and acquisition under the agreed budget cost another 3,000,000 ₸.
| Item for the period | Amount |
|---|---|
| Payments received | 15,000,000 ₸ |
| Refunds | 750,000 ₸ |
| Remaining after refunds | 14,250,000 ₸ |
| Teaching and support | 5,000,000 ₸ |
| Acquisition | 3,000,000 ₸ |
| Balance after included items | 6,250,000 ₸ |
Subtract 750,000 ₸ in refunds and 8,000,000 ₸ in costs from 15,000,000 ₸ to leave 6,250,000 ₸. This is a cash balance in a simplified example. Other fixed costs, taxes and obligations beyond the period have yet to be deducted. If support continues, money must remain available for it.
Acquisition cost under the included budget is 3,000,000 / 100 = 30,000 ₸ per original buyer. Across the 95 buyers without a full refund, the same spend gives about 31,579 ₸. Compare cohorts under one definition or show both: silently changing the denominator changes what CAC means.
Full CAC needs every relevant acquisition cost. If the three million includes only some costs, label it that way. Report teaching and support separately from acquisition; count each expense once in the overall economics.
Instalments add a receipts schedule. Future contractual payments are not yet in the school's account. If a finance partner pays, use receipts and fees under its terms. Match advertising and teacher costs to when money is available.
Better-fitting students and fewer sales
Suppose the school adds a sample assignment and the actual workload to its page. Payments fall while the share submitting work rises. One percentage is insufficient: the marketer looks at demonstrated results in absolute numbers, refunds, support workload and the cohort's money.
Compare at the same time since the start and under the same criteria. Record changes in price, teacher, curriculum and audience mix alongside the result. If they changed together, the difference cannot all be credited to the landing page.
For the next test, choose one change and agree beforehand which outcomes can support a decision. Views, attendance and sales can serve as intermediate measures. The skill promised to students still needs its own assessment.
Exercise: copy for the page and a table for the owner
Take a completed cohort from your project or build its reporting template. A reader should understand who is counted and what the school actually measured.
The next cohort has a hundred buyers. By day 90, sixty submit an assignment and forty-five meet the criteria. "75% of students mastered UX design" still overextends the conclusion. 45 / 60 = 75% describes submitters; coverage is 60%, and 45% of the original cohort has a demonstrated result.
A suitable statement is: "45 of 100 participants met the final assignment's criteria by day 90." Put the task description beside it. Claiming the skill was acquired because of the course needs separate evidence; the school owner also needs the economics of that same cohort.