How to Use Full Funnel Google Analytics Attribution: The Guide for Shopify Developers

In today’s digital landscape, business owners and freelancers from all environments need an effective way to track the various stages of their customer journey and determine which factors drive sales. Often, ecommerce vendors, service providers, and developers alike leverage tools like Google Analytics to drive their “marketing attribution” strategies.

The latest version of Google Analytics (GA4) allows companies to “attribute” conversions to various stages in a customer’s journey in a variety of different ways. There’s the option to use data-driven attribution, paid and organic last click attribution, and Google paid channels last click attribution.

The data you gather from these “attribution” insights can help you unlock new insights into where website visitors come from, and which marketing campaigns drive the best results. But the benefits of attribution analysis aren’t just significant for ecommerce store owners.

They can also help Shopify developers, creating apps, themes, and solutions for Shopify stores, to gather valuable data for business growth. Now that Shopify offers full funnel Google analytics attribution to developers, the opportunities are greater than ever.

What is Full Funnel Attribution? The Basics

Marketing attribution is the reporting strategy that allows marketers, sales professionals, and business leaders to see the impact a specific campaign or marketing effort had on a business goal. For instance, in today’s world, companies use attribution techniques to determine which social media channels drive the most sales to an ecommerce store, or which paid ads increase conversions. 

Similarly, Shopify developers use marketing attribution methods to determine why and when people are downloading their Shopify apps or themes, and what drives them to a download page. 

Unfortunately, marketing attribution only gets more complicated as your business evolves, and customer journeys change. The more strategies you use to attract clients, from influencer programs to social media marketing, and more, the more confusing it can be to determine what’s really working for your organization. That’s where full funnel attribution comes in.

Full funnel attribution methods take a broader look at the various components that influence a customer’s journey. Rather than just focusing on which campaigns or marketing channels attracted a customer’s attention first, or what people clicked on right before they downloaded your app or theme, full funnel attribution looks at every stage. 

It examines the connection between each stage of your marketing journey, and how much of an impact each “touchpoint” had on your conversion rates. 

How to use Full Funnel Attribution on Shopify

Shopify has given developers, designers, and Shopify partners opportunities to leverage conversion insights for some time now. The ecommerce platform provider offers direct integrations with Google Analytics. This means users can add their Google Analytics tracking ID to their “Partner Dashboard” on Shopify, and see which activities led to certain actions. 

For instance, previously, developers could see which campaigns or links led to a retailer clicking the “Try Theme” button on a theme listing, or the “install” button on an app listing. 

However, while this strategy offered developers a basic insight into where and how they should look into optimizing their marketing activities and ad spend, the insights available were a little limited. 

Fortunately, in September 2023, Shopify introduced new features to their Google Analytics integrations. Now, developers can include the app and theme install events themselves in their attribution insights, to provide developers with more robust, full-funnel analytics. 

According to Shopify, this will ensure developers can better understand the cost-benefit of their marketing channels and campaigns, and confidently compare the results of their Shopify app store ads and other marketing campaigns through the marketing funnel.

Additionally, developers will be able to tie the app or theme install event to a specific Shop ID, which offers richer insights into the types of merchants installing your solution. 

This makes it easier to get insights into your ideal target audience you can use to potentially increase sales, or personalize advertising efforts. Remember, the more you know about your ideal audience, the more effectively you’ll be able to design marketing campaigns that speak to them. 

How to Implement Full Funnel Attribution Methods

Getting started with both Google Analytics and full funnel attribution methods as a Shopify partner or developer is relatively straightforward. If you’re tracking installs of your Shopify app, log into your Partner Dashboard with Shopify, then click on “Apps”. 

Select the name of your app, then click “Distribution”, followed by “Create listing” or “Manage Listing”. Choose the listing you want to edit, and in the “Tracking information” section, enter your GA4 measurement ID, then click “Save”. 

The process is similar for Shopify developers listing themes, the only difference being that you’ll use the “Themes” section on Shopify’s Partner Dashboard. 

Keep in mind, you’ll also need to create a Measurement ID for each of your assets using your Google Analytics account. You can learn how to do this with the step-by-step guide available from Google here. To provide full insights into the full details of your app or theme installation funnel, Shopify’s theme and app stores use the Google Analytics 4 Measurement Protocol to track server-side events. 

To receive information about these events, your theme or app listing needs to have entered an API secret generated within the Google Analytics UI. The following events will be sent to Google Analytics by Shopify and display in the “real-time view” section:

• Shopify app install: Sent when a merchant finishes installing an app from the Shopify app store. 
• Shopify app ad click: Sent when merchants visit an app listing within the Shopify app store, by clicking on an ad link. 
• Shopify theme install: Sent to Google Analytics when a merchant completes the purchase and installation of a theme from the Shopify theme store. 

How to Generate Google API Secrets

To create a Google API Secret, you’ll need to log into the Google Analytics dashboard you use for your business, and click on the “Admin” icon in the bottom left corner of the screen. From there:

• Scroll to “Property Settings”, and click on “Data Streams”.
• Select the measurement stream that corresponds with the Measurement ID you have on your theme or app listing. 
• Click on “Measurement Protocol API secrets”, and click “Create”.

You can then add the API secret to your app or theme listing by logging into your Shopify Partner Dashboard, clicking on the “Themes” or “Apps” section, and clicking on the name of the product you offer. Select “Edit Theme Store Listing”, or “Edit Theme App store listing”, then, in the “Tracking and analytics” section, enter your measurement ID and API secret. 

Click “Save” to save the changes to your listing as a draft, then select “Update published listing” to publish the changes and start accessing full funnel attribution data. 

Notably, Shopify also allows developers of apps and themes to track other “Shopify specific” events within Google Analytics. These events are triggered on the client side from the Shopify App store, which means they don’t use the Google Analytics 4 Measurement protocol.

Currently, there’s only one custom event available for “Add app button”. This is sent whenever a user clicks the install button on your app’s listing page. However, Shopify may introduce additional custom event options in the future. 

Setting Up Full Funnel Attribution with Shopify

Shopify’s close relationship with Google Analytics doesn’t just deliver a host of benefits to ecommerce store owners. It also means Shopify can help partners and developers in their ecosystem access deeper insights into customer journeys and conversion paths. 

With the new full funnel attribution capabilities, Shopify is offering developers a unique way to gather more information about each stage of the installation journey. 

Remember, you can always boost your chances of earning a significant revenue as a Shopify expert by branching out beyond the app and theme stores too. Joining Storetasker as a Shopify Expert gives you an excellent chance to launch your own side business or full-time business as a developer, designer, or consultant for Shopify business leaders.

Contact our team today for more insights into how you can become a Shopify Expert. 

‍