Why did my website's traffic drop by 93% in one day?

[AlternativeFoot]

Bit of a strange one, our site sessions have dropped by 93% in 24 hours really not sure why and where to start looking for answers...

Anyone else experienced this or anything similar?

Any suggestions greatly appreciated 🙂

Thanks

[FionaDillon]

We changed to a new Cookie Banner, but I still don't think the data is accurate. 

This has affected Shopify Analytics, GA4, google Ads and Facebook Ads. We have a massive hole in our reporting during the busiest time of the year and nothing from Shopify to help us. 

[shellbryson]

We have the same hole! But I don't think there is a fix (and likely, this will just get worse down the line as browsers block this kind of tracking regardless what the use picks in a cookie content modal - FireFox and Safari for a start). We've had to change the way we collect stats and are more reliant on other tools now, like TripleWhale.

[yawarzakir]

I am facing the problem, any update from you guys?

[GrazeYou]

I can't see from this thread if anyone's considering the possibility that the new stats are the *correct* stats, and the reason Shopify are quiet about it is that their figures have been inflated for so long? 

[shellbryson]

That's not how it works. Broadly, most of the tracking was based on unique identifiers in cookies. Shopify implemented a change to better meet GDPR laws, which requires a user to acknowledge the use of cookies and allow them. Previously, Shopify was tracking these cookies until the user switched them off. This is not allowed in the EU. You have to ask the user first, then enable tracking if they say yes.

Using non-cookie-based trackers (behavioural trackers, like TripleWhale), you can see the traffic is still there (as in, impressions, over all traffic).

So, technically, Shopify "fixed" an issue (tracking before content). The downside to this is the sudden drop in traffic: either users saying no or declining or browsers blocking the tracking.

This is not something that can be fixed. If anything it's going to get far more difficult to track these things as browsers become far more aggressive about what tracking they block.

[GrazeYou]

Thank you for summarising! It's coincided with a big drop in sales, but maybe that is a coincidence.

Would Google Analytics show the correct figures? Or is there a cheaper alternative to TripleWhale (I can see there is a free option, but would love deeper insights).

[AV11]

I don't necessarily disagree with what you said, but prior to these changes, Shopify already allowed you to select to collect data after consent. That's why I don't understand why so many metrics have jumped off a cliff - either Shopify was incorrectly collating data despite what we'd selected (and I wouldn't put it past them), or they broke something (which I also wouldn't put past them)

[shellbryson]

I think they were recording some data before the user consented. This is what they fixed.

[FionaDillon]

We are in the EU and we have always had 'collect after consent' on, as that's the law, I'm not sure what Shopify has done exactly, but they haven't 'fixed' anything. I agree with @AV11; either Shopify was incorrectly collating data despite what we'd selected, or they broke something.

All I know is that with no warning, our analytics dropped off a cliff during the busiest time of the year. Our ads stopped working because the Google Shopify integration stopped working. We worked with OneTrust to collect cookies as we had done a lot of research and this was the best one, and now that solution no longer works with Shopify. We have had months of inaccurate data collection and were blind. I still don't trust the data with our new cookie banner. 

[shellbryson]

I don't work for Shopify (clearly), but my guess is that: they _were_ collecting some data for EU customers _before_ consent (think of it as pre- pre-concent...?) regardless of the options set in the Cookie options in the Shop admin or whether the customer interacted with the cookie challenge. Shopify 'fixed' this issue, which resulted in a drop in perceived traffic if: 1) customer ignores the cookie challenge, 2) declines the cookies, 3) using a browser that blocks cookies anyway (which is an increasing number of browser by default).

The real problem, though, is that Shopify has failed to really articulate this, fumbled the rollout ("there was a bug"), and then failed to respond with any technical detail when Theme developers and our clients started to raise issues.

I think the fix they applied was probably required, but the way it was dealt with was suboptimal.

[polguixe]

Has the issue being resolved?

We did experience the same after installing Cookiebot.

[Bene_Wrr]

Did you manage to fix it?

[Mitrodol]

Hi All,

Have someone else encountered this issue with the Avada Cookie Consent app?

Everywhere we can see a drop after installing app, banner, and choosing the 'Collected after consent' option - GA4, G Ads, Meta, Snap (all this tracked manually in GTM), Pinterest (native app). Even Shopify Analytics itself in reports dropped. I can't imagine how it can be if own CMS Analytics drops. How can we rely on Shopify in general now? We don't even know the real sales numbers. Their backend data shouldn't be unaffected at all. 

Users mainly from the EU zone. 

[Bene_Wrr]

We are in the same boat. Did you fix this after all?

[spicywebUD]

Any solution yet ? its been months 

[JolieBeauty]

Did anyone solve the issue at all? We've installed cookie bar after cookie bar and still none of them track the visitors correctly on the shopify dashboard. Analytics still showing the full range of traffic.

[Shamisen]

I had this problem resolved. My traffic stopped growing then suddenly dropped by half. Then I started receiving error messages from Google Search Console. So I thought it was due to a Google update and I hired an engineer from India to look into it. He fixed some SEO in Shopify but traffic did not change although errors ere fixed. Then after a month, here is what I did:

- Remove TikTok from Shopify Admin

- Remove Shop app from Shopify

Then next day traffic was back to normal. So look into SEO, Tik Tok and Shop app. 

[AlternativeFoot]

@Shamisen that's really interesting, can I ask what gave you the idea to remove TikTok & Shop App?