Shopify Marketing Reports: Where They Are, How to Read Them
Shopify marketing reports live in two places: the Growth section of the admin (the renamed Marketing tab), which summarizes sessions, sales and orders by channel and campaign, and Analytics > Reports, where the Marketing category holds the detailed reports such as Performance by marketing channel. Both let you switch the attribution model, which decides which channel gets credit for an order. For any of it to be accurate, every link you post outside your store needs UTM parameters.
Facts come from the Help Center pages on marketing performance and marketing reports, read on October 23, 2026.
The Growth section
Open Growth in your admin. Staff need the Home, Reports and Marketing permissions to see it. It shows:
- Marketing summary: online store sessions, conversion rate, average order value, total sales, and the sales and orders attributed to marketing, for the last 30 days compared with the 30 before. Change the dates with the date picker.
- Marketing channels: each channel’s sales, sessions, average order value and conversion rate. Top channel performance shows your five best channels with ROAS, CTR, CPA and first-time versus returning customers.
- Marketing activities: your recent campaigns and their results, filterable by channel.
“Attributed to marketing” has a specific meaning: traffic that arrived with a utm_campaign parameter, or from campaigns created in Shopify and apps that share data with Shopify. A visit from an untagged Instagram bio link is not counted as marketing here.
Some channels show limited metrics in Growth: Facebook and Google campaigns don’t display cost, ROAS, CPA or CTR there, so you read those in Meta Ads Manager or Google Ads. And report data can take up to 24 hours to update.
The marketing reports in Analytics
Go to Analytics > Reports, click the Category filter and choose Marketing. The reports worth knowing:
| Report | What it shows | Use it to |
|---|---|---|
| Performance by marketing channel | Paid, organic, direct, unattributed and unknown traffic per channel, with sessions, sales, orders, conversion rate, ad spend, ROAS, CPA, CAC, AOV and new vs returning customers | Compare channels, and paid vs organic within one channel |
| Performance by marketing campaign | The same metrics grouped by campaign, then by channel | See a campaign that ran on several channels as one result |
| Sales attributed to marketing | Sales from traffic with UTM parameters or Shopify-managed campaigns | Check what tagged campaigns sold |
| Sessions attributed to marketing campaigns | Sessions from UTM campaigns, Facebook ads, Google Shopping ads | Check traffic before sales come in |
Since September 2026, Performance by marketing channel includes all traffic to your store grouped by channel, not only traffic attributed to a marketing activity. Its totals are higher than before, and it now shows organic and direct rows. If your numbers jumped in September without a reason, this is the reason.
Spend-based columns need cost data. A row with no connected ad platform shows a dash, which means “no data”, not zero.
Shopify also explains how it treats a customer’s visits. The referrer that first brought a customer is the first interaction; the one just before the order is the last interaction. If a visitor does not buy within 30 days, the first interaction resets to the next referrer, and after an order, the next referrer starts a new first interaction. Canceled, pending and unpaid orders are included in these reports; test and deleted orders are not.
The old reports “Conversion by first interaction”, “Conversion by last interaction” and “Attribution model comparison” are deprecated; use the channel reports with the attribution menu instead.
Attribution models
When a report has a sales metric and a marketing dimension, an Attribution menu appears in its settings. In Analytics reports the default is last click; in Growth and in the marketing channel reports it is last non-direct click.
| Model | Who gets credit | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Last non-direct click | The last channel before the purchase, ignoring direct visits | Default view: which marketing closed the sale |
| Last click | The last channel, including direct visits | Seeing how often people come back on their own to buy |
| First click | The first channel the customer used, including direct | Finding which channels introduce new customers |
| Any click | Every channel the customer clicked, each with full credit | Looking at one channel; totals exceed real orders |
| Linear | Equal credit to every click | Long journeys with several channels |
Compare two models before you cut a channel. A channel that looks weak under last non-direct click (for example, creator posts or a blog) may look strong under first click, because it starts journeys that email or search finishes. Attribution data in Growth is available from October 1, 2021; Shopify also reports cross-device journeys for storefront data since March 1, 2023.
Sidekick can answer questions about this data grouped by UTM campaign, source, medium or referrer, for example “Show sessions and net sales by UTM campaign for last month”. It can’t compare attribution models or report discount code performance; use the reports for those.
Tag every link with UTMs
Shopify reads the standard UTM parameters on your links, and utm_campaign is what makes a visit count as marketing. A naming scheme that keeps reports readable:
- Lowercase only, so the same source isn’t written two ways (
Instagramandinstagram). utm_source= where the link sits:instagram,newsletter,reddit, a partner’s domain.utm_medium= the type:social,email,paid,influencer,referral.utm_campaign= date plus name:2026-11-winter-sale.
We tag our own links this way: every link we post gets a source, medium and a campaign with a year-month prefix, so one report shows which channel sent which result. Creator campaigns follow the same scheme with one campaign per creator; see our guide to influencer tracking. For page-level behavior beyond Shopify’s reports, see Google Analytics 4 on Shopify, and for more guides the marketing and SEO hub.
Frequently asked questions
Where are marketing reports in Shopify? In the Growth section of the admin for summaries by channel and campaign, and in Analytics > Reports under the Marketing category for detailed reports such as Performance by marketing channel.
What attribution model does Shopify use? Growth and the marketing channel reports default to last non-direct click. Analytics reports with a sales metric and a marketing dimension default to last click. You can switch to first click, any click or linear.
Why did my marketing channel report change in September 2026? Since September 2026, Performance by marketing channel includes all store traffic grouped by channel, not only traffic from marketing activities, so totals are higher and organic and direct rows appear.