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Conversion tracking is and has always been an important topic to grow a successful online store. Without it, you won’t get the correct insights where your sales are coming from. With conversion tracking, you not only know where conversions are coming from but it also has a positive impact on campaign performance. In this guide we’ll explain everything about Conversion Tracking for Shopify stores.
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What is conversion tracking?
Conversion tracking is used to track specific actions on a website or online store. These actions can be purchases, signups, click-through rates and many more.
Conversion tracking versus Event Tracking
Conversion tracking and event tracking are often intertwined. And yes, they are mostly similar. Events are often the measurable steps that people take to achieve the conversion. So instead of looking at definitions it’s important to define what you need to track. However, let’s dive into a short explanation.
Conversion tracking:
- Purpose: Tracking specific actions that align with business goals. It’s a goal to achieve that specific action.
- Examples: Completing a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, submitting a contact form.
- Goal: Measure the effectiveness of your campaign.
Event tracking:
- Purpose: Track specific interactions
- Examples: Clicking on a purchase button, watching a video, viewing a page.
- Goal: Gain insights into user behavior, how do people interact with your website.
Why do I need conversion tracking?
There are 2 reasons to install conversion tracking, insights and campaign performance.
Insights
First, it’s about measuring the effectiveness of your marketing activities. Giving you insights into what ads to scale or pause. For example: From which ad or email did the purchase in my Shopify store come from? Running advertisements for online stores, without tracking conversions will lead to a disaster. You won’t know where the sales came from.
Improve campaign performance
Second, these conversions are valuable data. When you send the data back to the advertising platforms, the advertising algorithms use this data to optimize your campaigns. They know how to better target your ads, because they now know who bought your products.
Looking for an easy way to boost campaign performance? Trackbee improves campaign performance by enriching conversions and events. -> Try it for Free here
What conversions and/or events should I track for my Shopify store?
If you run a shopify store, I would recommend to track the following conversions:
- Purchase (Order Completion)
- Add to Cart
- Checkout initiated
- Cart AbandonmentSign-up / account creation
- Product View
- Newsletter signup
- Product Search
- Coupon usage
- Repeat purchase rate
- Return request
How to add conversion tracking for Shopify?
For each advertising channel or analytics platform there are different steps on how to set-up conversion tracking. Below you will find instructions for Google Analytics, Google Ads and Facebook.
BE AWARE! Standard conversion tracking pixels miss up to 50% of conversion data. Make sure to not miss any sales in your advertising platforms, automate conversion tracking with Trackbee. -> Try it for Free here
If you need more extensive help (including screenshots), please visit one of the following pages:
- Shopify Google Ads conversion tracking (coming soon)
- Shopify Facebook Ads conversion tracking (coming soon)
- Shopify Tiktok conversion tracking (coming soon)
- Shopify Pinterest conversion tracking (coming soon)
- Shopify Conversion tracking Google Tag manager (coming soon)
- Shopify Conversion tracking Google Analytics (GA4) (coming soon)
- Shopify server-side conversion tracking (coming soon)
1. Facebook Pixel Conversion Tracking
Step 1: Create a Facebook Pixel
- In Facebook Business Manager, go to Events Manager and create a Facebook Pixel.
- Copy the Pixel ID.
Step 2: Add the Pixel to Shopify
- In Shopify, go to Online Store > Preferences.
- Scroll down to the Facebook Pixel section.
- Paste your Facebook Pixel ID into the available field.
- Save your changes.
Step 3: Set Up Conversions in Facebook
- Shopify automatically tracks and sends these events to Facebook, but you can customize them further in the Events Manager.
- Back in Facebook Events Manager, configure Standard Events like Purchase, AddToCart, and ViewContent.
Step 4: Enable Conversion API (CAPI)
- Shopify’s Facebook integration also allows you to enable Facebook Conversion API (CAPI) to track server-side events, improving data accuracy with third-party cookies being restricted.
- In Shopify, go to Sales Channels > Facebook and follow the setup to enable Conversion API.
Step 5: Add missing conversions with Trackbee
- Create a free Trackbee account here
- Following the setup instructions in Trackbee
2. Google Ads Conversion Tracking
Step 1: Generate a Conversion Tracking Tag in Google Ads
- Sign in to your Google Ads account.
- Go to Tools & Settings > Measurement > Conversions.
- Click the + New Conversion Action button.
- Choose Website as your conversion source.
- Fill in the details (e.g., Conversion name, value of purchase).
- Google Ads will generate a tracking tag.
Step 2: Install the Google Ads Conversion Tag in Shopify
- Copy the Global Site Tag (gtag.js) and the Event snippet (used for purchase conversions).
- In Shopify, go to Online Store > Themes and click Actions > Edit Code.
- Open the theme.liquid file and paste the Global Site Tag before the closing </head> tag.
- For the Event snippet:some text
- Go to Settings > Checkout in Shopify.
- Scroll to Order Status Page and paste the Event snippet in the Additional Scripts box. This snippet will fire only when a purchase is completed.
Step 3: Test Your Conversion Tracking
- Use Google Tag Assistant or Tag Manager to verify that the tags are firing correctly on your site.
- Place a test order in your store to see if the purchase conversion is recorded in Google Ads.
Step 5: Add missing conversions with Trackbee
- Create a free Trackbee account here
- Following the setup instructions in Trackbee
3. Google Analytics Conversion Tracking (GA4)
Step 1: Create a Google Analytics 4 (GA4) Property
- If you haven’t already, create a Google Analytics 4 property for your Shopify store.
- Set up a new data stream for your website.
Step 2: Add the Google Analytics Tag to Shopify
- From your Shopify dashboard, go to Online Store > Preferences.
- Scroll down to the Google Analytics section.
- Paste your Google Analytics 4 Measurement ID (e.g., G-XXXXXXX) into the available field.
- Save your changes.
Step 3: Set Up E-commerce Tracking
- In Google Analytics, go to Admin (in the bottom left).
- Under Data Streams, select your Shopify store's stream.
- Under Enhanced Measurement, enable Ecommerce Events like purchases, add-to-cart, and product views.
- Make sure "Enhanced Ecommerce" is also enabled in the Shopify settings under Settings > Checkout > Google Analytics.
Step 4: Set Up Conversions in Google Analytics
- In Google Analytics, go to Events under the Admin section.
- Find important events like purchase, begin_checkout, add_to_cart, etc.
- Mark these as conversions by toggling the switch next to each event you want to track.
