Hi,
we’ve been getting very confusing results from ShopifyQL reports and the Conversion Summary. The deeper we look into it, the worse it gets.
For many of our orders, conversion summary says the entry point for the customer is the checkout. No UTM parameters are tracked. With some orders, it is though. So sometimes it works.
We have activated the UTM tracker Checkout Blocks app connect. Under notes the UTM parameters are tracked, even though the conversion summary says there customer did not have any. We have done test orders, the simplest one being visiting the page with a UTM parameter and then ordering a product. Even then, nothing is stored in conversion summary (the notes being filled by Checkout Blocks work).
Looking at reports, for the test order no utm_source or anything like that is tracked either. However for other orders, utm_source etc. is tracked, yet conversion summary does not track anything. Yet other orders, conversion summary works too. This is mostly the case where it is not the first order of the customer, however there are also first orders where conversion summary worked.
Basically… wtf?
Oddly enough, for some reason I can’t see the replies here.
Anyway, I spoke to the support and they say it’s an issue they are aware of. While they are working on a permanent fix for all customers, a re-sync triggered by the support should fix the issue for us. We’ll see how it goes.
Good that support confirmed it’s a known issue - the re-sync should help with some of the historical gaps, but it’s worth understanding that not everything you’re seeing is purely a bug. Some of it is structural to how Shopify’s attribution works.
When conversion summary shows ““checkout”” as the entry point, it usually means Shopify couldn’t trace a prior storefront session for that customer - so it just logged wherever the tracked journey started. This happens a lot when customers click a direct-to-cart or direct-to-checkout link (common in email campaigns or retargeting ads), come back on a different device, or have Safari/iOS ITP clearing their cookies before they convert. In those cases, Shopify genuinely has no earlier session to attach UTMs to, and it’s not really a sync issue.
The disconnect between Checkout Blocks capturing UTMs in notes while conversion summary shows nothing is because they’re working from different sources. Checkout Blocks reads UTM params from the URL at the checkout stage - it doesn’t need a prior storefront session. Shopify’s native attribution requires the UTM to be picked up when the visitor first lands on the storefront and stored in a session cookie, then matched when the order completes. If that chain breaks anywhere, conversion summary comes up empty even if the UTM is technically in the URL at checkout.
For repeat customers specifically, Shopify often attributes to an existing customer profile in a way that skips session-level attribution, which is probably why you’re seeing it fail more often for non-first orders.
So after the re-sync, I’d expect some improvement on historical data, but you’ll likely still see gaps for the structural reasons above. The Checkout Blocks notes are honestly more reliable for UTM capture given those limitations - it might be worth treating that as your primary attribution source for now rather than relying solely on conversion summary.