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How do online stores work?: Measuring the marketing performance

On the Marketing page in your Shopify admin section, you’ll learn more about the quality and quantity of traffic your marketing campaigns bring to your online store. Online store reviews and cart conversion rates can provide you with general information about the marketing campaigns you’ve created in Shopify. To view marketing performance data, go to the Marketing page in your Shopify admin area.

The Marketing page displays a summary of the marketing results. The summary contains data from the last 30 days and shows a comparison to the previous 30-day period. It includes the following key figures:

Online Shop Sessions – The total number of sessions in your online store during the 30-day period (a session is a period of continuous visitor activity).

  • The total number of sessions in your online store during the 30-day period (a session is a period of continuous visitor activity). Marketing Sales – The total number of sales attributable to online store traffic resulting from Shopify’s marketing campaigns and third-party marketing sources sharing data with Shopify.
  • The total number of sales that can be attributed to online store traffic resulting from Shopify’s marketing campaigns and third-party marketing sources sharing data with Shopify. Marketing Orders – The total number of orders that can be attributed to online store traffic resulting from Shopify’s marketing campaigns and third-party marketing sources sharing data with Shopify.
  • The total number of orders that can be attributed to online store traffic resulting from Shopify’s marketing campaigns and third-party marketing sources sharing data with Shopify. Marketing spend – The total amount spent on Shopify-created marketing campaigns and all third-party marketing sources sharing data with Shopify.

Learn more about marketing activity reports for campaigns created in Shopify.

Traffic Insights

Note: Reports with traffic insights are only available on the desktop.

On the Marketing page, in the Overview section, click Sessions in the online store to see more detailed information about your online store traffic:

On-line traffic over time – All 30-day sessions compared to all sessions in the previous 30-day period.

  • All sessions from the 30-day period compared to all sessions from the previous 30-day period. Conversion in the online shop – The percentage of sessions in the online shop that led to an order. Also displays the total number of converted and unconverted sessions.
  • The percentage of online store sessions that resulted in an order. Also displays the total number of converted and unconverted sessions. Top Traffic Sources – The online sources that have spent most of their 30-day sessions on the online store.
  • The online sources that have done most of the sessions for the online store over the 30-day period. Top Revenue Sources – The online sources that provided the sessions that resulted in the highest total online sales for the 30-day period.
  • The online sources that provided the sessions that resulted in the highest total revenue for the online store in the 30-day period. Top Traffic Locations – The geographic locations associated with the highest number of sessions in the online store during the 30-day period.

Some of the online store traffic insights are also linked to reports that contain more data. The traffic insights provide access to three reports:

Report on top traffic sources

Report on locations with top traffic

Report on the conversion in the online shop

Report on top traffic sources

Displays the online store’s top traffic sources by total number of sessions, orders, order value, or conversion rate. The order value includes taxes and shipping costs, but unlike total sales, no returns.

The Top Traffic Sources report contains the following columns:

Traffic Source – The website or service a customer used to reach your website.

  • The website or service that a customer used to reach your site. Conversion Rate – The percentage of sessions that resulted in an order.
  • The percentage of sessions that resulted in an order. Orders – The total number of orders resulting from sessions from each traffic source.
  • The total number of orders resulting from sessions from each traffic source. Order Value – The total value of all orders resulting from sessions from each traffic source. The order value includes taxes and shipping costs, but unlike total sales, no returns.
  • The total value of all orders resulting from sessions from each traffic source. The order value includes taxes and shipping costs, but unlike total sales, no returns. Sessions – The total number of sessions in your online store from each traffic source.

Report on locations with top traffic

Displays the best geographic locations of the online store by the total number of sessions, orders, order value, or conversion rate. The order value includes taxes and shipping costs, but unlike total sales, no returns.

The Locations with Top Traffic report contains the following columns:

Location – The geographic location where a customer visited your site.

  • The geographic location where a customer visited your site. Conversion Rate – The percentage of sessions that resulted in an order.
  • The percentage of sessions that resulted in an order. Orders – The total number of orders resulting from sessions from each traffic source.
  • The total number of orders resulting from sessions from each traffic source. Order Value – The total value of all orders resulting from sessions from each traffic source. The order value includes taxes and shipping costs, but unlike total sales, no returns.
  • The total value of all orders resulting from sessions from each traffic source. The order value includes taxes and shipping costs, but unlike total sales, no returns. Sessions – The total number of sessions in your online store from each traffic source.

Report on the conversion in the online shop

Shows how customers shop in your online shop. The report shows the number of sessions that reach each stage in the conversion funnel, from your website’s visit, to adding a product to the shopping cart, to reaching or completing the checkout. This report also includes a diagram with a visual representation of the sessions during the conversion stages.

The Online Conversion report contains the following columns:

Conversion Step – The step in the conversion funnel that a visitor has reached.

  • The step in the conversion funnel that a visitor has reached. Sessions – The total number of sessions in your online store that reached each step.

If you sort the Sessions column of the Conversion report in the online store in ascending or descending order, only the traffic sources within each report category are sorted. The report categories, such as Total Traffic or Added to Cart will not be rearranged based on their totals.

For example, suppose you have traffic from Facebook and DuckDuckGo. If you sort the report by session, only the order of Facebook and DuckDuckGo will change within each report category.

For marketing reporting information in the Statistics section, see Marketing Reports. To see reports on the results of your marketing campaigns using third-party marketing apps, see Marketing Activity Reports.

Display of sales and meetings through marketing campaigns

The Marketing Results Summary shows a breakdown of sales and sessions attributed to each campaign you’ve created in Shopify. The breakdown contains data from the last 90 days. As a result, you may see different data than in the summary, which contains only data from the last 30 days.

View a conversion report for a marketing activity you’ve created in Shopify

You can view a conversion report for each marketing activity in a campaign that you created in Shopify. The report contains data from the last 30 days.

Sessions and sales attributed to marketing activities you created in Shopify are based on the last clicked interaction. For example, if a customer recently clicked on a Facebook ad that you created in Shopify before placing an order, the revenue is attributed to the marketing campaign activity that the Facebook ad in Shopify belongs to.

Learn more about marketing activity reports for campaigns created in Shopify.

Steps: Go to Marketing in your Shopify admin section. Click the name of a marketing campaign to see the marketing activity you’ve created in Shopify for that campaign. Hover over a marketing activity and click View Report.

Marketing activity reports for campaigns created in Shopify

Reports available on the Marketing page display data about the interactions that can be attributed to the marketing campaigns and activities you’ve created in Shopify. You can use these reports to gain insight into the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.

The reports provide data on some of the results of the marketing activities you’ve created in Shopify:

Sessions: Number of sessions from your marketing activity. A session is a continuous activity of a visitor within a certain period of time. Includes new and returning visitors.

Orders: Number of abandoned orders.

Sales from marketing activities. Includes gross sales, shipping and taxes. Excludes discounts and returns.

Spend on ads: Amount spent on marketing activities.

Visits: Includes new and returning visitors.

Impressions: The number of times your marketing activity has been viewed.

Conversion Rate: Number of orders as a percentage of total visits in your store.

Top Products by Number Sold: Indicates which products have been sold the most.

Discount Discounts: Displays the discount code used by the customer.

Sales by location: Number of sales originating from each country.

Sessions by Location: Number of sessions for your marketing activity from each country. Often higher than “sales by location,” because not every session leads to a sale.

New vs. Recurring Customers: Compare the number of customers who have visited for the first time with the number that have visited more than once.

If you create a marketing activity in Shopify and then display both the Shopify reports and the related third-party reports, you may notice some discrepancies. This is because either Shopify and third-party vendors assign interactions and revenue differently, or data synchronization delays.

For example, if you create a Facebook ad in Shopify and then view the Shopify Conversion report and the Facebook data for the same ad, you may see different results in the two reports.

Deviations in the assignment

There may be discrepancies in sales and order data between your marketing activity reporting in Shopify and the reports generated by the marketing app or third-party platform on which you created the marketing activity.

For example, if you run an email campaign and a Google Shopping campaign at the same time, a customer who clicks on your email and your Google Shopping ad will see a separate conversion each time. However, Shopify’s marketing activity report assigns the sale only to the source of the ad that last clicked within the last 30 days.

Deviations in spending on ads

The spend data for ads in your Shopify Marketing Activity reports and the reports available externally for the same service may also be different. For example, in the Shopify Activity Report, you might see $ 10.00 spent on spending on ads for a Facebook campaign, while the Facebook Ad Manager will display $ 13.00 for the same campaign. For a simple reason, it can take up to 24 hours for the marketing app spend to sync with Shopify. The deviation is therefore a consequence of the delay. Your spend limits are controlled by the ad service itself. Therefore, the delay will not cause you to exceed your budget.

Published inE-commerce
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