How to see first click attribution in Shopify and GA4

To see first click attribution today, use Shopify's Attribution menu or rebuild it from GA4, which dropped the model in November 2023. Usually the quickest GA4 route is the User acquisition report, which files revenue under the channel that first brought each user. For a path-level view, export the attribution paths.

Step by step

You need purchase marked as a key event and a few months of data. Viewer access is enough to read and export the reports.

1. Confirm GA4 no longer offers the model. Open Attribution settings and look at the Reporting attribution model list. First click is not on it, because Google retired it in November 2023. Look without changing anything: a new reporting model rewrites past reports too. Menu path: Admin > Data display > Events > Attribution settings.
2. Open GA4's first-touch view. In User acquisition, use the dimension picker at the top left of the table to choose First user default channel group. "First user" describes how you first acquired each user, and the value stays put as they return. Menu path: Reports > Acquisition > User acquisition.
3. Read revenue and purchases by first channel. Read Total revenue, then pick purchase in the Key events column to count purchases. A returning user's later sessions stay in the row of the channel that first brought them, so this is first click at user level. Menu path: Reports > Acquisition > User acquisition, Total revenue and Key events columns.
4. Set it beside the session view. Open Traffic acquisition for the same dates, on Session default channel grouping. Google's help warns that the two reports differ in scope, so compare the order of channels, not the totals. Menu path: Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition.
5. Export the paths for a path-level version. Select purchase in the key event drop-down, then click Share this report in the top right and download the data. GA4 exports reports as PDF, CSV or Google Sheets; CSV is the easiest to split. If your menu lists Key event attribution paths under Key events, that is the same report. Menu path: Advertising > Attribution > Attribution paths > Share this report.
6. Give each path's revenue to its first touch. In a spreadsheet, split each path at its first separator and keep the first channel in a new column. Then sum Purchase revenue by that column in a pivot table. One-touch paths need no split, because their only touch is also the first. Menu path: your spreadsheet; no GA4 menu.
7. Switch Shopify to First click. Open Performance by referring channel and select First click in the Attribution menu of the configuration panel. Shopify counts direct visits under First click and starts a fresh first interaction after each order. Menu path: Shopify admin > Analytics > Reports > Category: Marketing > Performance by referring channel > Attribution > First click.

A worked example

For illustration, say your exported paths hold four rows:

In this worked example, first click gives Paid Social €4,000, Organic Search €2,000 and Direct €4,000.

If you credit the raw last touch instead, as Shopify's Last click does, Direct takes €7,000 and Email €3,000.

If you skip direct visits, as GA4's paid and organic last click does, Email keeps €3,000, Organic Search gets €2,000 and Paid Social €1,000. And if a path was direct all along, like the €4,000 row, Direct keeps it.

Say you judged Paid Social on last click: it would hold €1,000, while first click says it opened journeys worth €4,000. Neither figure says what Paid Social caused. They only say where it stood in the queue.

Now add the clock, using one store's export. First-click credit depends on how far back each tool can see, so time to purchase matters.

On that store's Journeys sheet, journeys of 2 to 3 touches took 12.5 days to buy. Journeys of 4 to 9 touches took 16.9 days and journeys of 10 or more took 16.0 days, the Journeys sheet says.

Shopify resets a first interaction when a visitor buys nothing within 30 days of a session. Journey lengths like those sit well inside that window. In a store shaped this way, Shopify's first click would usually see where a journey began.

GA4's paths reach back as far as your key event lookback window, and for purchases the default is the longest option. The one-touch row on the Journeys sheet took 0.5 days to buy and holds 79.5% of revenue. For that row, the first click is the last click, so no window matters.

When is a first-click view worth building?

When your journeys have more than one touch and your channels play different roles. If paid social or creators bring people in and email or search brings them back, first click shows the opening half of that story.

It is not worth an afternoon when most revenue sits on one-touch paths. There, first click and last click name the same visit, and the pivot in step 6 repeats what Traffic acquisition already told you.

Either way, treat it as a second opinion on credit. A channel that looks better under first click has earned a closer look, not a bigger budget. The budget call needs a test of what the channel adds.

What to check when the report looks wrong

• User acquisition is mostly Direct. The first-user value is set on a user's first visit and kept as they return, so an untagged first visit stays Direct for that user. GA4's help suggests tagging destination URLs or linking your ad accounts when the report shows only direct traffic.
• The paths report is empty. Without a key event there is no path to show, so check that purchase is marked as a key event.
• A first touch looks too recent. The lookback window sets how far back a touchpoint can earn credit. A first visit older than the window drops off the path, and the next touch becomes the first.
• Shopify and GA4 name different openers. Shopify resets the first interaction after 30 days without a purchase and after each order. GA4's first-user channel stays with the user for as long as GA4 recognises them.
• Google Ads has no first click option. Google Ads no longer supports the model and moved the conversion actions that used it to data-driven. Its Model comparison report sets last click against data-driven instead.

What to do this week

1. Pull last quarter's first-user view. In User acquisition, set the dates to last quarter and note the top three channels by Total revenue. Pass: you can name the channels that first bring in your buyers. Fail: Direct leads by a mile, so tag the links that introduce people before you read it again.
2. Build the first-touch pivot once. Export the paths and pivot Purchase revenue by first channel, as in step 6. Pass: the pivot's total matches the export's total. Fail: it falls short, so some rows lost their first channel in the split; check the blanks.
3. Put Shopify's First click beside the pivot. Use the same dates in Performance by referring channel. Pass: the same channels lead both. Fail: they differ, so check Days to key event in the paths report; journeys that outlast Shopify's reset window are the first suspect.

Check the homework. Your GA4 Attribution paths export already holds the evidence. Causality Engine reads that one file and shows what each channel caused next to what last-click gave it, in 1 to 2 minutes, for €99 once (excluding VAT), refundable within 30 days. Check the homework

Sources, 1 October 2026: Get started with attribution (Google); Select attribution settings (Google); User acquisition report (Google); Change dimensions in detail reports (Google); Scopes of traffic-source dimensions (Google); User acquisition report vs. Traffic acquisition report (Google); Key events attribution paths report (Google); Share & export reports (Google); Marketing reports (Shopify); About attribution models (Google)

Related answers

• All Attribution models questions
• What is first click attribution?
• What is first click attribution for a pet products store?
• Touchpoint, defined