Sales by Marketing Source

Sales by Marketing Source shows your sales grouped by the utm_source tag on each order, such as google, newsletter or facebook. It tells you which tagged sources bring in orders and how much they’re worth.

How It’s Calculated

The table has one row for each different utm_source on your orders in the date range, and shows the 20 with the most orders. The page has no chart. A pinned dashboard card of this report shows the 10 with the most Total Sales.

The columns are:

• Marketing Source: the utm_source tag, in lowercase. Orders with no utm_source are in the (direct / unknown) row.
• Orders: the number of orders placed.
• Average Order Value: the row’s sales before returns, divided by its orders.
• Gross Sales: each item’s price times its quantity, before discounts, shipping, tax and returns.
• Total Sales: Gross Sales minus Discounts, plus Shipping and Tax, minus money refunded in the date range.

The totals row adds up only the rows shown. If you have more than 20 sources, it’s less than your total.

Where the Tag Comes From

Shopify records the UTM tags on the customer’s last visit before the order. Only orders Shopify can tie to a visit to your online store have them. Point of sale, phone and draft orders have none.

By the Numbers needs permission to read Shopify’s marketing events to record tags. Orders imported without it carry none. Capital letters don’t matter: Email and email count together.

What Counts

• Sales count on the day the order was placed. A refund counts on the day it was made, against the utm_source of the original order. Refunds on orders placed more than 2 years before the start of the date range aren’t counted.
• Refunds on orders with no utm_source aren’t taken off the (direct / unknown) row, so its Total Sales can be higher than it should be.
• Orders that were canceled, or whose payment was voided or expired, don’t count.
• Days follow your store’s time zone, and every amount is in your store’s currency.
• Sales Channel, Segment and Filters narrow the report. There’s no comparison period.

What Good Looks Like

There’s no right mix. What matters is whether the sources you pay for or work on bring orders at an Average Order Value you can afford.

A large (direct / unknown) row means many orders carry no source tag. It includes visits from links without a tag, visits with no referrer, and orders Shopify has no visit for.

What to Do About It

• A large (direct / unknown) row: tag the links you control, such as ads, emails and social posts. How to Tag Your Ads With UTM Parameters shows the setting for each ad platform.
• A source with many orders and a low Average Order Value: check its discounts in Sales by Discount Code.
• A source you can’t match to a campaign: open Sales by Marketing Campaign.
• Sources by Shopify’s own record: open Sales by Marketing Referral Source, which doesn’t need tags.

Where to Find It

• Sales by Marketing Source: open Reports and look under Sales.
• Sales by Marketing Medium: the same orders by utm_medium.
• Sales by Marketing Campaign: the same orders by utm_campaign.
• Sales Attributed to Marketing: all tagged sales, period by period.