Can anyone explain why we frequently see a discrepancy in the total number of orders converted in the Shopify reports for CR, against the total number of orders actually processed?
Surely the stats should be measured against actual orders placed, rather than using client-side Javascript tracking?
Or is it because this would weigh the data towards orders, which might not have an associated session (due to cookie restrictions etc).
I’d love to get to the bottom of this one, as we repeatedly get asked this (very valid) question from our clients.
Hey Jonathan,
How big are the discrepancies? I’m thinking there could be small discrepancies produced by things like timing (when the order is made / attributed as a conversion), and maybe order adjustments (refunds, returns, etc).
Hi Liam,
Thanks for looking into this. It has been something we’ve seen across all our stores for quite some time now. The numbers are way out, when comparing total orders vs ‘sessions that completed checkout’. My current thinking is that Shopify sticks to one reporting metrics (Javascript) throughout the tracking, rather than finishing the funnel with actual total orders?
Here’s an example from Monday with a 100% discrepancy between the CRO report (3) and the total orders (6)
I’d love to get to the bottom of this!
Many thanks
Jonathan
@Liam-Shopify are you able to give any further help with this one? It is something we face with all our Shopify data, I would love to understand the thinking behind it - just so we can be clear when our clients question us about it.
Hey,
I haven’t been able to dig up much info on why this might be happening. Is this only on one store or many?
Hi again - so it could be related to cookie restrictions as you noted, if merchants don’t have a cookie banner set up for a specific region or the banner is not working correctly, there will be no session data for that region. Also customers may visit the store with settings or extensions on their browsers that don’t allow their activity to be fully tracked, such as an adblocker or using Incognito Mode.
Yeah to re-iterate, CRO is impacted by analytics as it’s based upon impressions.
If you’re based in the UK/EU you 100% need a Cookie Banner that is compatibile with Shopify’s Privacy API to allow for tracking, I typically find I get a 50% Accept/Decline Rate so the metrics are usually half.
These do not much up with GA4, as GA4 will after a period of time start estimating data based upon Cookie Accept/Decline rates.
Edit: Forgot to mention, the majority of analytics (i.e. impressions, views) are client-side based so Cookie consent, Ad Blockers and so on will impact your measured CRO.
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