How should a pet products store measure its marketing?
If you sell pet products, measure first orders and reorders separately. Judge ads on new customers and what they buy next. Judge email and subscriptions on retention, and keep reorders out of channel reports, where they flatter the last channel to touch them.
By Joris van Huët, Founder & CEOUpdated 5 min read
Run the numbers for your store: the free repeat purchase rate calculator.
If you sell pet products, measure new customers and reorders as two separate businesses. Food, litter and treats run out, so many sales may repeat without any ad. Judge ads on first orders and what those customers buy next; judge email and subscriptions on retention. Otherwise reorders flatter whichever channel touched them last.
If you sell pet products
If you sell food, litter or flea treatments, the pet sets your calendar, not your ads. A bag runs out and the owner reorders. That makes your best customers predictable, and your attribution reports confused. The first order is the expensive one. A new owner has to find you, trust you with an animal they love, and leave the brand they used before. After that, a reminder email or a subscription often does the rest.
Then come the sales nobody tagged: the vet who recommended you, the breeder who handed over a sample bag, the neighbour at the dog park. If those buyers type your address, GA4 files them under Direct, its channel for saved links and typed URLs. Subscriptions add one more twist. A renewal that charges on schedule may never touch your site, so no channel can claim it, and no ad caused it this month.
What one store's data shows
One store's anonymised GA4 export, 1 January 2024 to 21 August 2026. It holds shares of revenue only: no ad spend, no order counts.
| What the export shows | Value | Source cell |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue from journeys with 1 touch (0.5 days to buy) | 79.5% | Journeys sheet, 1 touch row |
| Direct's share of revenue, in all three views | 57.7% | Channels sheet, Direct row |
| Break-even ROAS at a 40% margin (1 divided by 0.40) | 2.5x | Break-even sheet, 40% margin row |
The export does not say what Store A sells. It is one store's pattern, and not a benchmark for pet shops.
On the Journeys sheet, journeys with 1 touch hold 79.5% of revenue, with 0.5 days to buy. If you sell consumables, that is what a reorder can look like: one visit, straight to checkout, no shopping around.
On the Channels sheet, Direct holds 57.7% of revenue in every view. If you sell pet food, Direct is where a bookmarked reorder or a typed address would land.
The export has no customer column, so it cannot tell first orders from reorders. That leaves the 57.7% Direct share in the export open: loyal owners restocking, or new buyers sent by a vet. That one split decides whether your marketing finds customers or just collects credit for keeping them.
The Break-even sheet adds arithmetic, not data about this store: at a 40% margin, break-even ROAS is 2.5x, because 1 divided by 0.40 is 2.5. That bar applies to one order. A channel that brings owners who reorder for months can sit below it on the first order and still pay.
What changes for a pet store?
Split new from returning. Shopify's New vs returning customers report shows first-time and returning customers by week or month. Judge acquisition spend against the first-time row, not total revenue.
Follow cohorts, not campaigns. Shopify's Customer cohort analysis groups customers by the month of their first order and tracks their repeat purchases. A channel whose owners keep reordering is worth more than its first-order numbers suggest.
Keep subscriptions out of channel reports. If you sell through the Shopify Subscriptions app, the Subscription vs one-time sales report splits the two. Renewals tell you about retention, not about last week's ads.
Test your reminders, too. Reorder emails collect credit for restocks that might have happened anyway. If your email tool supports a holdout group, keep a slice of customers out of one reminder flow and compare reorder rates.
What to do this week
- Open New vs returning customers. In Shopify admin, go to Analytics > Reports, set the Category filter to Customers and open New vs returning customers, grouped by month. Pass: you know this quarter's first-time customers. Fail: you only know total revenue, so acquisition and reorders are blended.
- Measure what renews on its own. Go to Analytics > Reports, set the Category filter to Sales and open Subscription vs one-time sales. Pass: you know the subscription share and keep it out of channel comparisons. Fail: the report is empty because your subscriptions run through another app, so pull the same split from that app.
- See which channels find new owners. In GA4, go to Reports > Acquisition > User acquisition, where each dimension describes how users were first acquired. Pass: you can name the channels that bring first visits. Fail: Direct dominates, so ask new customers how they found you before you cut anything.
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: Customers reports (Shopify); Sales reports (Shopify); Default channel group (Google); User acquisition report (Google)
Related answers
Frequently asked questions
Should a pet store judge ads on first-order ROAS?
Partly. First-order ROAS shows whether an ad pays straight away, but pet food and litter get reordered. Track the same customers in Shopify's cohort report for a few months before you call a channel unprofitable.How do I measure a pet subscription business?
Separate renewals from new sign-ups. If you use the Shopify Subscriptions app, its reports show active, new and canceled subscriptions over time. Judge ads on new subscriptions, and judge retention on cancellations.Do vet and breeder referrals show up in GA4?
Usually not under their own name. A recommendation made in a clinic carries no link, so the visit tends to arrive as Direct or as a search. Give partners a tagged link or a QR code, or ask new customers how they heard about you.
Go deeper: Causal attribution, explained.
Sixty-second versions of these ideas: Causality Engine on YouTube Shorts.
Keep reading
Terms in this article
- Ad SpendAd Spend is the total amount invested in advertising campaigns. It is measured against Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) to evaluate campaign effectiveness.
- 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 ReportAttribution Report shows which touchpoints or channels receive credit for a conversion. It identifies which campaigns drive desired actions.
- CausalityCausality is the relationship where one event directly causes another, essential for identifying specific actions that drive desired outcomes in marketing.
- Holdout TestA holdout test is an experiment where a portion of the audience does not see a campaign. This measures the campaign's true incremental impact.
- Marketing MixThe marketing mix is the set of actions a company uses to promote its brand or product. It traditionally includes product, price, place, and promotion.
- Marketing Mix ModelingMarketing Mix Modeling (MMM) is a statistical analysis that estimates the impact of marketing and advertising campaigns on sales. It quantifies each channel's contribution to sales.