All transactions from Shopify are showing up as “Direct” traffic in Google Analytics. We first assumed this was an issue regarding our referral exclusion list, so we excluded the landing page that all shopify transactions are from (ourname.myshopify.com) and we also excluded checkout.shopify.com and checkout.rechargeapps.com. However, the attribution for all shopify transactions are still “Direct”.
Note: The payment processor we use with Shopify is Recharge - and when users are going through the payment process on our website, they are not redirected to a different domain.
Is this issue related to cross domain traffic? Conversion issue in Google ads, Google tag manager, etc?
Hello, I’m having the same exact problem! All the transactions appear as direct traffic. Althought it separates the channel aquisition in terms of sessions, the transactions all escape to the direct channel. Let us know what may be happening.
Hello! I’ve found the problem on my situation - it was the plugin that i had for GRPD purposes. Verify that and I think that you will have the solution.
@diogosampaio what did you exactly do with the Plugin?
We are having the same issue, and we are working with CookiePro.
So far we’ve seen that it might be because some Shopify checkout cookies are still not categorized, we will see if adding those into a category approved by the client could solve the issue, as most of the cookies that are still uncategorized are those in which according to Shopify documentation, the Function is within the checkout.
Just started using a new Consent Management Platform and direct traffic spiked straight away. In our case the banner caused the problem in Shopify analytics and GA4.
Long story short – all the non-vital for the page scripts are blocked (incl. GA4) until user allows cookies. Now imagine your banner settings allow user to interact with a page without accepting (banner at the bottom, in our case). User interacts with your page for a minute and decides to accept consent. Boom! Scripts fire up, but the first page for them will be the one user is now. Due to this, there is no information to connect the source and medium, resulting in everything being grouped under direct/none (GA4), the direct channel in (shopify). You can read more here.
Investigate**.** Manually verify your orders conversion details. Focus on direct conversions. If you discover a pattern of “Direct” conversions with strange (e.g. deep in page catalog or “Privacy policy” page) first landing pages – that might be it. That’s the sign that users click trough your pages and accept consent at this specific page Shopify treats as “first/landing”. Keep in mind that “Direct” channel refers to traffic from users who arrive directly at your website domain. This typically means that they’ve either bookmarked your website, or typed your URL directly into their browser. So if you find those first URLs strange – that might be it.
Solution that worked for us. I modified cookie consent banner settings to block user interaction with a page until user accepts/regrets cookies. Basically, banner appears on the overlay and you can’t proceed without a decision.
Hey reader, give aif it helped you, so others know.
Aware this is a bit of a dated post but we’re also encountering this issue and are already blocking people from interacting with the site prior to accepting/declining but it still does not attribute traffic in the correct way.
If you do have any other tips, I’d really appreciate any input.
aww sorry to hear! having same issues since updating our theme. I have dine some reading too, I believe Shopify updated privacy in March 24 - it auto does not track customers unless they allow it via the banner - so in Aus its not required but if you want accurate data and customer accepts then it should be implemented? I am seeing a lot of Aussie sites now with a cookie banner in Aus so kinda makes sence.
if it helped you, so others know.