How do you calculate the percentage of total purchases in a pivot table?

• A. Divide the count of purchases for each campaign by the total number of purchases (e.g., =C52/563)
• B. Multiply the count by 100
• C. Subtract the campaign count from the total
• D. Divide the grand total by each campaign's count

Answer: (A)

To find each campaign’s share of all purchases, compare the campaign’s count to the overall total. This is done by dividing the number of purchases for a campaign by the grand total of purchases. When you format that result as a percentage, you get the portion of the whole that each campaign represents. For example, if a campaign has 52 purchases and the grand total is 563, 52/563 ≈ 0.0924, which is about 9.2%.

In a pivot table, you can also set the value to display as a percentage of the grand total, which is another way to show the same idea automatically. The other approaches don’t fit: multiplying by 100 without relating to the total isn’t meaningful as a share; subtracting from the total gives the remainder, not the share; dividing the total by each campaign’s count yields the inverse of the desired percentage.