Something that’s bugged me for ages: I’ll look back at my analytics, see a sales spike or a dip in sessions, and have no idea what caused it. Was it a discount? An email that went out? An ad campaign? An out of stock issue? A few weeks later the context is gone and I’m just guessing.
Shopify has actually started adding annotations to the dashboard recently, which is great to see, but they only cover internal changes the platform already knows about, like theme updates and product launches or edits. What’s still missing is the ability to add your own notes for everything happening outside Shopify, which is usually the stuff that moves the numbers most. Marketing campaigns, influencer posts, press mentions, pricing changes, that kind of thing.
Anyone who’s used GA4 will know the annotations feature there, where you can drop a note on a date so the chart actually tells you a story. I kept wishing Shopify had the same for external events.
In the end I built it myself. It’s called Annotrack, and it does basically that one job: you pin your own notes to dates on your charts, colour coded and categorised, so when you look back you can see exactly what was going on.
Just gone live on the App Store. Curious how other merchants currently track the “why” behind their numbers? Spreadsheets? Memory?
You’re certainly not alone. Many merchants resort to spreadsheets, calendar reminders, project management tools or just plain memory to tie business events to changes in performance. The problem is that analytics tell you what happened, but not always why it happened.
Having the ability to insert user-generated annotations directly in the sales and traffic data would enhance the utility of trend analysis quite a bit, particularly when looking back at campaigns, pricing adjustments, product introductions, influencer actions or inventory glitches a number of years later. Your solution fills a true workflow void, and it will be interesting to see how merchants adopt it in their reporting routines.
@SealSubs-Roan Thanks, and completely agree - hence building it I’ve also included impact reports which analyses the before and after periods around each annotation for an extra insight. I hope others find it useful.
Congrats on the launch! You are hitting on a massive pain point. Honestly, most merchants I know still rely on messy Google Sheets, chaotic calendar notes, or just pure memory. Looking at an old data spike with no context is incredibly frustrating, especially when you are busy building a business.
Data needs context to be useful. Putting those external notes directly on the Shopify timeline makes perfect sense. Best of luck with your Annotrack.
Most merchants rely on memory or a messy spreadsheet and forget everything within a week.
Annotrack fills the real gap that Shopify still has not solved.
I’ve also included impact reports which analyses the before and after periods around each annotation for an extra insight. I hope others find it useful.