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Google Analytics is a powerful system for understanding user behavior. When you connect SourceMedium to Google Analytics, SourceMedium will stream and integrate your ‘GA’ data into your dashboard and other data sources. The integration of this data can be fairly involved, so let’s break it down to just the main things that give the maximum amount of clarity.

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How Google Analytics data is Integrated - the “Attribution Source Hierarchy”

When integrating data, we focus on Best-Signal Selection. SourceMedium uses Shopify as the robust transactional foundation (Source of Truth for “what was sold”), but we actively enhance that record with attribution signals from Google Analytics and other platforms. Rather than just “trusting” one over the other, we intelligently merge them. We prioritize the most specific and reliable signal for each order—this is our Attribution Source Hierarchy. In short, we report an aggregated dataset where Shopify’s financial records are enriched by GA’s behavioral data. For the full priority order, see Attribution Source Hierarchy. This enrichment can fill in gaps in both data sources — SourceMedium can regularly provide attribution for 10-30% more orders than Google Analytics on its own.

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Why doesn’t Shopify/SourceMedium match Google Analytics?

Google Analytics has some common failure points that can cause data sources to diverge:
  • Subscription Checkout Issues Subscription services like ReCharge often do not correctly attribute orders. This can happen for a number of reasons, and the solutions generally depend on the subscription service.
  • Adblockers The data that GA provides is generally only as good as the tracking, and most, if not all tracking tech (pixels, cookies, tags, etc.) can be circumvented by customers.
  • Faulty Tracking There’s no absolute right or wrong approach for setting up UTMs, but most companies make some sort of mistake when setting up tracking. Start with UTM Setup, then follow Improving Last-Click Attribution and this template.
  • Factors not visible to SourceMedium Tracking is complex, and many other factors that are not visible to SourceMedium can come into play. It is generally reasonable to expect 10-20% discrepancies between Shopify (source of truth) and GA.

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Intelligent Data Aggregation

SourceMedium doesn’t just rely on one method. Instead, we aggregate first-party data captured from all sources and intelligently merge it to create the highest quality record. This means:
  • More Data Sources = Better Output: Connecting more platforms gives SourceMedium more signals to resolve identity and attribution.
  • Better Capture = Better Output: Improvements to your upstream tracking (e.g., a robust GA4 setup or server-side tracking) directly improve SourceMedium’s accuracy.
We use Shopify as the transactional backbone (financial truth) and enrich it with the best available attribution signals from your entire stack.

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What do “Direct / None” & “None / None “ Source / Mediums mean?

(Direct) / (none) is the bucket we put things in when we don’t have access to attribution data. It means either people visited your website directly (manually typing in the URL) or something outlined above dropped attribution. (None) / (none) traffic refers to visitors whose UTM source and medium values are both null and therefore cannot be identified by Google Analytics. If you’re seeing one these source / mediums as your largest attribution category, usually it means something can be improved!

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How to Improve Your UTM Tracking

To ensure that your Google Analytics setup is proper, make sure that you have correctly installed the tracking code on your website and that you have set up your goals and filters correctly. Additionally, you should regularly review your traffic sources to identify any potential issues with direct or none traffic. If you are experiencing issues with direct or none traffic, consider implementing UTM tracking parameters to more accurately track the sources of your website traffic. However, keep in mind that UTMs can break due to a variety of reasons, including ad blockers, misconfiguration of GA, and ReCharge checkout issues. It is also important to note that Google Analytics may not be able to distinguish between new and returning customers, as it does not have a total history of your new versus repeat customers. To address this, SourceMedium has ingested historic data for your business to match a customer against those that have been ingested to determine if that customer is new or returning. Finally, keep in mind that the data provided by GA is only as good as the tracking technology being used, which can be circumvented by customers using ad blockers or faulty tracking. For this reason, we use Shopify as our source of truth and use GA data to enrich that Shopify data. Some of the best practices we have identified are outlined in this starter doc and this template.