Shopify analytics: native reports, GA4 and customer events

Shopify native reports

The Analytics section of the admin shows a dashboard with sales, sessions, conversion rate, average order value and returning customers, plus a library of reports by product, channel, location, discount or customer. For sales, orders, returns and taxes, Shopify is the source of truth: the data comes from real orders, not an estimate.

Reports can be customized by changing metrics, dimensions and filters, and saved to check again later. The number of reports and options available depends on your plan, so check what you have in your admin before paying for an external tool that does the same thing.

For more specific questions, the report editor lets you build your own queries with ShopifyQL, such as sales by collection and month or conversion by device type. Save the ones you check every week and share them with the team so everyone looks at the same numbers.

What GA4 adds and what it does not

Google Analytics 4 is useful for understanding behavior: acquisition channels, landing pages, user journeys, on-site searches and mobile versus desktop usage. It also lets you combine data with Google Ads and Search Console.

What GA4 does not do well is count sales accurately. Ad blockers, users who decline analytics cookies and purchases completed on another device all make GA4 figures come in below Shopify. This is normal and does not indicate an error, as long as the gap stays stable over time.

How to install GA4 on Shopify

The recommended way is the Google & YouTube app. When you connect your Google account, the app lets you link a GA4 property and sends ecommerce events through Shopify's customer events, including checkout. There is no need to paste code into theme.liquid.

Before installing it, check whether the theme or any app already loads a Google tag, and whether a Google Tag Manager container is also sending events to GA4. Two installations double page views and purchases, and it is one of the most common mistakes in stores that have passed through several teams.

Customer events: Shopify's pixel system

All the store pixels are managed in Settings > Customer events. There are two types: app pixels, installed by apps such as Google & YouTube or the Meta and TikTok apps, and custom pixels, where you can add your own code for tools that have no app.

Pixels run in a sandboxed environment and receive standard events that Shopify emits on the storefront and in checkout. Since checkout no longer accepts scripts from the theme, this is the way to track the purchase steps with Checkout Extensibility.

• page_viewed, collection_viewed and product_viewed
• search_submitted
• product_added_to_cart and cart_viewed
• checkout_started and the contact, shipping and payment steps
• checkout_completed

Custom pixels and Google Tag Manager

If you need Google Tag Manager, you can load it from a custom pixel and push the events you subscribe to into the dataLayer. Keep in mind that, because it runs in a sandbox, some GTM features behave differently than on a regular website, such as preview mode or triggers based on DOM clicks, so test every tag.

Each custom pixel has permission settings that define what kind of consent it needs, such as analytics or marketing. Configure them properly so the pixel only runs once the visitor has accepted it in the cookie banner.

Attribution and data consistency

Shopify, GA4 and each ad platform attribute sales with different models, so they will never match to the cent. Meta may claim a sale that GA4 assigns to organic search and Shopify to a direct visit. What matters is choosing a reference for each decision and looking at trends, not isolated figures.

Use consistent UTM parameters across email, social and campaigns, with a written naming convention for the whole team. Without tidy UTMs, a large share of traffic ends up as direct and channel reports lose their value.

Also decide which numbers each person looks at. Leadership usually needs sales, margin and returning customers from Shopify; marketing needs acquisition and cost per purchase from the ad platforms and GA4. Mixing sources in one report without explaining it is the fastest way to lose trust in the data.

A checklist to verify your tracking

Place a test order and follow the trail: it should show up in Shopify, GA4 should record the purchase event exactly once with the right amount and the ad platforms should receive the conversion. Repeat the test accepting and declining cookies to confirm consent is respected.

Then review the list of pixels and remove the ones for tools you no longer use. At Weblineo we review tracking as part of our Shopify CRO service: we leave a single pixel setup with no duplicates and show you how to read the reports that matter for your business.