How to Export and Analyze Shopify Marketing Data
Export the orders from Shopify, take channel data from a Shopify report or GA4, and reconcile the totals before you calculate anything. The steps, with the causes Shopify and Google document.
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By Joris van Huët, Founder & CEOUpdated 5 min read
Export three things and reconcile them before you calculate anything: orders from Orders > Export in Shopify, channel data from a Shopify marketing report or GA4's key event attribution paths, and ad spend from each ad platform. Shopify's documented order columns include no UTM or referrer, so the orders file can't say which channel sold what. The tables you build next show who got credit, and in 15 Facebook ad experiments observational methods often failed to reproduce the randomized results (Marketing Science, 2019).
How do you export the orders?
In the Shopify admin, open Orders, click Export, choose the orders (for example Orders by date), pick a file format and click Export orders. Shopify downloads an export of up to 50 orders, and emails larger exports and exports by date to you and the store owner. It estimates that "an export with fewer than 100,000 items might complete in under an hour, whereas an export with 400,000 items might take around 4 hours".
The file has order, payment, discount, shipping and address columns, among them Created at, Total, Discount Code, Refunded Amount, Canceled at and Shipping Province Name. Shopify says "orders with multiple line items display their additional line items on separate lines", so count distinct order numbers in the Name column, not rows. The file also holds customers' emails, phone numbers and addresses.
Where does the channel data come from?
From Shopify's marketing reports or from GA4. In Shopify, go to Analytics > Reports, open a marketing report such as Performance by referring channel, choose an attribution model (last non-direct click, last click, first click, any click or linear) and click Export. Shopify says its any click model "allocates more credit than orders you've received" and can be used to "reconcile attribution reported by each channel". In GA4, open Advertising, then Key event attribution paths, and use Share this report to download the data. Google says a CSV download "includes up to 100,000 rows of data".
How do you check the files before you analyze them?
Three checks, on the same dates and the same time zone:
- Orders against Shopify's Sales report. Count distinct order numbers in the export and compare them with Orders in the report. Shopify says test orders "aren't included in Sales reports but they're included in your orders export", while its reports include "canceled, pending, and unpaid orders". Pass: the gap is test orders you can name. Fail: any other gap.
- Orders against GA4 purchases. Shopify lists blocked scripts, cookies and JavaScript settings, and different reporting time zones, as causes of differences with Google Analytics, and gives no typical size for the gap, so measure yours. Pass: GA4 is at or below Shopify's orders and you can name the causes. Fail: GA4 counts more purchases than Shopify has orders. Look for duplicate purchase events first: GA4 deduplicates purchases by transaction ID, so each order needs a unique one.
- Credit adds up. Under last click, each order gets full credit for one channel, so the channel rows should sum to total orders. Pass: they do. Fail: rows are missing, or test orders sit in one file and not the other. Shopify's last click includes direct visits, while Google says all GA4 attribution models exclude them unless the whole path is direct, so expect the two tools' channel tables to differ.
For the period around September 21 to 23, 2026, compare orders and revenue, not sessions or conversion rate. Shopify says its session measurement rollout runs from September 21 to 23, 2026, and that "your orders, sales, and customer counts aren't affected".
What can an LLM do with the export?
Draft the pivot or the query from the header row and a few made-up rows, then run it on the real file yourself. Shopify's help says "You can use Sidekick to help generate and modify ShopifyQL queries for your reports". Keep real rows out of any chat: the European Commission lists "a name and surname" and "a home address" among personal data, and both are columns in this export.
Rule of thumb: the tables show credit. To test what a channel caused, hold it out in some regions and compare revenue by Shipping Province Name.
Sources, 30 September 2026: Exporting orders, Exporting reports, Marketing reports, Sales discrepancies, Analytics discrepancies, Changes to sessions and conversion rate and ShopifyQL syntax (Shopify Help Center); Key event attribution paths, Get started with attribution, Share and export reports and Transaction IDs (Google Analytics Help); Data protection explained (European Commission); A Comparison of Approaches to Advertising Measurement (Marketing Science, 2019).
Related answers
Frequently asked questions
How do I export orders from Shopify to CSV?
In the admin open Orders, click Export, choose the orders or a date range, pick a file format and click Export orders. Shopify downloads up to 50 orders and emails larger exports, and exports by date, to you and the store owner.Does the Shopify order export include UTM parameters?
Not in the columns Shopify documents, which cover order, payment, discount, shipping and address fields. Channel data comes from Shopify's marketing reports or from GA4, and you combine it with the orders by date.Why don't my Shopify and GA4 numbers match?
Shopify lists blocked scripts, cookies and JavaScript settings, and different reporting time zones, as causes, and gives no typical size for the gap. Reconcile orders for the same dates and time zone, and name each cause before you analyze.Can I use ChatGPT to analyze my Shopify export?
Use it to draft the formula or query from the header row and a few made-up rows, then run that on the real file yourself. The export holds emails, phone numbers and addresses, which are personal data, so keep real rows out of the chat.
Go deeper: Causal attribution, explained.
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Terms in this article
- AnalyticsAnalytics is the systematic computational analysis of data. It reveals customer behavior and measures campaign performance.
- AttributionAttribution identifies user actions that contribute to a desired outcome and assigns value to each. It reveals which marketing touchpoints drive conversions.
- Attribution ModelAn Attribution Model defines how credit for conversions is assigned to marketing touchpoints. It dictates how marketing channels receive credit for sales.
- Attribution ReportAttribution Report shows which touchpoints or channels receive credit for a conversion. It identifies which campaigns drive desired actions.
- ConversionConversion is a specific, desired action a user takes in response to a marketing message, such as a purchase or a sign-up.
- Conversion rateConversion Rate is the percentage of website visitors who complete a desired action out of the total number of visitors.
- ExperimentsExperiments are scientific procedures that test hypotheses or demonstrate facts. In marketing, experiments like A/B tests determine the causal effect of campaign changes, enabling data-driven decisions.
- Google AnalyticsGoogle Analytics is a web analytics service that tracks and reports website traffic.