Marketing attribution resources. What your marketing caused, and how to measure it.
1,172 articles on attribution, incrementality, GA4 and where the next budget should go. Start with a guide, browse a topic, or read the newest below.
Start here
Briefings
Latest articles
Marketing Mix
How to check if you have enough data for MMM, step by step
Count your weekly sales rows in Shopify and your weekly spend in Google Ads and Meta. Check that each channel's spend moved and is big enough to matter, then divide rows by inputs. Under ten rows per input, merge or drop channels before you build a model.
Ecommerce Analytics
How much direct traffic is normal for ecommerce?
There is no official normal share for direct traffic. Google's help defines Direct but gives no healthy range. Your share is usually fine if it holds steady and shrinks once you tag your links. Compare it with your own history, in one report.
Ecommerce Analytics
How to find your normal direct traffic share, step by step
Pick one GA4 report and read Direct's share of sessions and revenue month by month. Compare it with last year, check your lookback window and Shopify's session update, then set your own normal band from your highest and lowest months.
Marketing Mix
How much should a DTC brand spend on marketing?
A DTC brand can usually spend as much as its new customers pay back. Work out the most you can pay for one new customer from first-order profit plus the repeat profit you can wait for. Then buy new customers until the next one costs more than that.
ROAS & Incrementality
Can a small store run incrementality tests?
Usually yes, if it asks a big question. Switch one whole channel off in half your regions, compare total orders, and size the test in orders, not days. A small store can't see small effects, and the ad platforms' own lift studies come with minimums.
ROAS & Incrementality
How to run a small-store incrementality test, step by step
Count your orders in Shopify, size the test to a question they can answer, and see whether Google or Meta will run it for you. If not, switch one whole channel off in half your regions, let the ads settle, and compare total orders by half.
Marketing Mix
Can I do MMM in Excel?
Yes, a basic one. Put about two years of weekly sales and weekly spend per channel in one sheet, add a carryover column and run Excel's Regression tool. Excel will not warn you when channels move together or choose the carryover, so treat the result as a first look.
Marketing Mix
Can a consumer electronics store do MMM in Excel?
Usually only a rough one. If you sell consumer electronics, launches, price drops and stock-outs can move weekly sales as much as ads do. An Excel model needs a column for each, or it hands their effect to whichever channel spent that week.
Marketing Mix
How to build a simple MMM in Excel, step by step
Export weekly sales from Shopify and weekly spend per channel, add a carryover column per channel and run Data Analysis > Regression in Excel. Tune the decay with Solver, test the model on weeks it has not seen, then compare each channel's total return with your break-even ROAS.
Ecommerce Analytics
Can I run ads to increase direct traffic?
Usually yes, but only sideways. No ad platform sells Direct as a target. Ads can make people come back later by typing your address. GA4 files those visits as Direct when it cannot tie them to an ad. Judge the ads on total sales, not on the Direct line.
Ecommerce Analytics
Can ads grow direct traffic for a health and beauty store?
Usually yes, if the ads reach people who later come back by typing your address. If you sell beauty or wellness products, Direct also fills with reorders and creator viewers. Judge the ads on first-time customers and total sales, not the Direct line.
Ecommerce Analytics
How to run ads that raise direct traffic, step by step
Tag every ad click, give the ads a landing page nothing else links to, hold some regions back and mark the launch in GA4. Then compare new Direct visitors, new customers and total sales in test regions against control.
Ecommerce Analytics
Can I trust GA4 data after cookie consent?
Usually for trends, less for exact counts and channel credit. With advanced consent mode and enough traffic, GA4 models the visitors who decline. Without it, their visits go unreported and their purchases can land in Direct. Count your orders in Shopify.
Ecommerce Analytics
Can a consumer electronics store trust GA4 after consent?
For totals and weekly trends, usually yes; for channel credit on big-ticket items, less. If you sell electronics, a purchase can follow several visits on several devices, and each declined visit breaks the chain. Check consent mode and modeling, and count launch orders in Shopify.
Ecommerce Analytics
How to check GA4 data after cookie consent, step by step
Find where your cookie banner shows, confirm consent mode is on, and see whether GA4's behavioral modeling is active and how much it adds. Then compare GA4's purchases with Shopify's orders in banner and non-banner countries. The gap between the two regions is roughly what consent costs your data.
Attribution
Do Google Ads and Meta double count sales?
Usually, yes. Google Ads and Meta each count a sale their own ads touched, by their own rules, and neither checks the other's claims. One Shopify order can sit in both dashboards, so their total often tops your real sales. Only Shopify's order count counts each sale once.
Attribution
Do Google Ads and Meta double count food and drink sales?
If you sell food or drink, usually yes, and most often on reorders. A regular sees your Meta ad, then clicks your Google brand ad to reorder, and both platforms claim that one order. Split each platform's purchases into new and returning customers before you judge either.
Attribution
How to check if Google Ads and Meta double count sales
Pull one closed month from Shopify, Meta and Google Ads, then set the two platforms' purchase claims against Shopify's orders. If the sum is higher, rule out duplicates inside each platform, then use GA4's paths to see which journeys both ads touched.
Ecommerce Analytics
Do I need server-side tracking for Shopify?
Usually not as a separate project. Shopify's Facebook & Instagram app sends purchases to Meta server to server at the Enhanced or Maximum level. Shopify's own reports never needed it. Pay for your own server setup only if a platform you rely on still gets browser events alone.
Ecommerce Analytics
Does a sports nutrition store need server-side tracking?
Usually yes for the server events Shopify's Facebook & Instagram app already offers, and rarely for a paid server setup. If you sell sports nutrition, check three things first: subscription renewals, repeat buyers, and product names Meta may treat as health data.
Ecommerce Analytics
How to check server-side tracking on Shopify, step by step
List your pixels under Settings > Customer events and set the Facebook & Instagram app to Enhanced or Maximum. Then confirm in Meta Events Manager that Purchase arrives from browser and server and counts once. Add Google Ads enhanced conversions before you pay for a server container.
Attribution
Do Meta view-through conversions count?
Yes in Meta's reports: with the usual default, a purchase within 1 day of someone seeing your ad counts as a result, no click needed. GA4 never counts it, because a view brings no visit. Whether the view caused the sale is a separate question.
Attribution
Do Meta view-through conversions count for food brands?
If you sell food or drink, Meta usually counts a purchase within 1 day of someone seeing your ad, no click needed. When buyers reorder often, that window fills with regulars who were buying anyway, so compare it with first purchases before you trust it.
Attribution
How to check Meta view-through conversions, step by step
Open Compare attribution settings in Ads Manager and put 1-day view beside 7-day click, with Meta's incremental model next to them. Then look for the same buyers in GA4 and in Shopify's order journeys. If views carry a campaign, test it before you scale it.
The newest 24 of 1,172. Every article is listed on its topic page above.
Your platforms guess.
We run the math.
Upload a GA4 export and see what each channel caused, next to last-click, in 1–2 minutes. The read is yours to keep.
Free, in your browser: your file is not uploaded. The full read is €99, refundable within 30 days. Prices exclude VAT.
Or book a 30-min call.