Squarespace or Shopify: marketing tools and measurement

Each platform's built-in marketing tools report their own version of the same sale. Shopify's email report credits orders by last non-direct click from store data and tags its links with utm_source=shopify_email by default. Squarespace tracks Email Campaigns links automatically and shows revenue per campaign in its traffic sources panel on Core, Plus and Advanced plans. Both describe their open counts as estimates or unreliable, so treat each dashboard as a claim and check it against the order list.

What do the built-in email tools record?

Shopify Messaging builds its email report from store data. The Orders section uses the last non-direct click model by default, and the conversion funnel is labeled an estimate because previews and security tools can load the tracking pixel without an open. A recipient who visits directly instead of clicking a link in the email isn't reflected in its analytics.

Squarespace says it measures opens with an invisible image, that Apple Mail Privacy Protection opens are "always reported as opened", and that corporate link pre-scans can inflate clicks. Clicks made inside the view-in-browser version aren't tracked, and a visitor who types your URL instead of clicking isn't tracked as part of the campaign. If cookies are disabled, "the visit and purchase won't appear".

Both pages also print an open-rate rule of thumb. Shopify's page calls an open rate of 20% to 22% good. Squarespace's page calls 20% or more healthy. Neither says what sample those numbers come from, so read them as opinions and not as benchmarks.

What does a discount code record?

Shopify's Sales by discount codes report groups sales by discount name or code. Its sales value covers only "the specific line items affected by the discount codes", and with combinable discounts "the same order might be included multiple times". It covers sales made after 1 May 2017.

Squarespace shows the number of uses for each discount in its discounts panel, and a renewing subscription discount is counted once. Its order export has Discount Code and Discount Amount columns. A code records that it was used at checkout. It doesn't record what brought the buyer to the code, so a discount report shows sales that used a code and not sales the code caused.

What do link tracking and UTM settings add?

Shopify Messaging adds a default UTM link to email campaigns: utm_source is shopify_email, utm_medium is email, and utm_campaign is the email name plus an activity ID. You can edit these for one campaign, and each parameter value must be 100 characters or less. Shopify says third-party analytics count link clicks while its own report uses store data, so the two "might not match".

Squarespace says its analytics already tracks Email Campaigns and Instagram Shopping, so you don't need a special link for them. The Squarespace pages cited here don't say which parameters, if any, its email links carry into GA4. Click a test link and read the landing URL.

How do you check each tool's claim?

Run this on last month's orders:

1. Export the ledger. On Shopify, take the orders list and the Sales by discount codes and Sales attributed to marketing reports. On Squarespace, take the orders CSV and the traffic sources panel.
2. Mark each order's claims. Note whether it carries a discount code, came through an email link, or came through another tagged campaign.
3. Count the overlaps. An order with a code and an email click is claimed by two tools. Add up what each dashboard claims and compare the sum with the store's orders.
4. Hold out a slice. Squarespace's Help describes splitting subscribers into two mailing lists of half each for an A/B test. Keep one list, or a smaller random share, unsent for one campaign, and compare orders per subscriber in both groups over the same days. On Shopify Messaging, use customer segments. The difference is what the email added, and no dashboard reports it.

Pass: the claims, once overlaps are removed, don't exceed the store's orders, and the held-out group orders less per subscriber than the group that received the email. Fail: the claims add up to more orders than the store took, or the held-out group buys at about the same rate as the group that got the email.

Sources, 30 September 2026: Shopify Messaging email analytics (Shopify, page read 30 September 2026); Track where your visits come from in traffic sources (Squarespace, updated 25 September 2026); Tracking email campaign analytics (Squarespace, updated 13 April 2026); Sales reports (Shopify, page read 30 September 2026); Create discounts (Squarespace, updated 11 September 2026); Export Commerce orders (Squarespace, updated 24 November 2025); Creating trackable links (Squarespace, updated 14 July 2025); Managing customers (Shopify, page read 30 September 2026)

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