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This article will cover how you can setup custom events in Cometly to track first time purchases in Stripe or recurring purchases in Stripe.
This article is based on using the Stripe New Payment trigger in Zapier to send purchase events to Cometly.
Step 1: Differentiating First-Time Payments from Recurring Payments
There are two ways to identify a first-time payment in Zapier when using Stripe:
Using the Customer Next Invoice Sequence
Using the Description Field in New Payment Events
Option 1: Using the Customer Next Invoice Sequence
The Customer Next Invoice Sequence is a Stripe field that tracks the sequence of payments. If this value is set to 2, it indicates that the payment is the first one for a new subscription.
In Zapier, build a filter step that only triggers when the Customer Next Invoice Sequence field equals 2.
This ensures that only the first payment events are processed as new subscriptions.
Option 2: Using the Description Field
Each new payment from Stripe comes with a Description field, which can help distinguish between subscription updates and new creations.
Subscription Creation: Indicates the first payment of a new subscription.
Subscription Update: Refers to ongoing or recurring payments.
Create Necessary Filter
Create a filter in Zapier that only triggers when the Description field equals Subscription creation to catch first-time payments.
Step 2: Filtering for Successful Payments
To ensure only successful payments are sent to Cometly, please add a new filter action step filter. We will use the filter to only send successful payments to Cometly.
For the Filter setup & testing section, configure the filter so it will only continue if the status (text) exactly matches succeeded
Click Continue & test and proceed to the next step.
Step 3: Sending Events to Cometly
Choose Cometly as the next action in your Zap and send the Cometly event of your choosing.
By setting up filters using the Customer Next Invoice Sequence and Description field, you can reliably differentiate between new and recurring payments. This helps you maintain accurate tracking within Cometly and ensure your revenue attribution is correctly mapped.
If you have any questions or run into issues, feel free to contact our support team for assistance.