Shopify Ad Click Attribution Without Relying on Cookies

Shopify App Store
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1

Hey everyone!

I’d really appreciate any advice or guidance on this.

Is there a recommended way to know which Shopify shop clicked on my ads and reliably maintain that attribution throughout the installation process?

Currently, we have the following flow:

  1. The ad redirects to a URL on our own domain.
  2. That URL receives the click and triggers a request to store the ad_stamp in an HttpOnly cookie.
  3. We then redirect to our app’s Shopify landing page so the merchant can install it.
  4. Once installed, our embedded app tries to read that cookie and, based on the ad_stamp, determines how many trial days to grant.

The problem is that this approach is not reliable in some scenarios, mainly Safari/ITP and incognito browsing, where third-party cookie restrictions prevent the cookie from being available when the app tries to retrieve it.

What would be the best practice to handle this and reliably identify which shop originated the click, without relying on cookies that may be blocked?

Thanks in advance for any insights or suggestions!

2

Hey @Lucas_Sena - thanks for reaching out. We had a related thread here that covers the same limitation around passing referral or campaign query parameters through an App Store installation:

The URL parameters won’t reliably carry through into the actual app session after installation, so relying on the ad_stamp cookie isn’t a dependable way to grant trial days.

For supported App Store funnel attribution, Shopify provides listing traffic tracking with Google Analytics or Facebook Pixel:

With this configured, Shopify can send events such as shopify_app_ad_click and shopify_app_install, including shop details on the installation event. This is intended for analytics attribution rather than passing a custom campaign token into your app.

For app-side trial handling, you’d likely need an explicit handoff you control, such as a short-lived referral token redeemed after installation or a referral/promo code. Once the app opens, I’d use the verified Shopify session to identify the shop and associate it with that referral.

If these are external ads rather than Shopify App Store ads, the App Store tracking events won’t include your external ad_stamp.

Let me know if I can help out further.