Question from Reddit user:
I think Google Analytics & Shopify aren’t properly attributing sales from Google shopping Ads, I even clicked an Ad and looked at tracking in browser & saw the word “organic” in the tracking tags.
How can I 100% make sure my Google Shopping Ads get credit for sales from these Ads?
Answer from Nabil:
The short answer is:
Your observation that your Google Shopping Ads are being incorrectly attributed as “organic” in your tracking, leading to discrepancies between Google Analytics and Shopify, is a classic sign that Google’s auto-tagging parameter (gclid) is being lost or stripped before the page fully loads or the final conversion is recorded.
To guarantee 100% accurate attribution for your Shopping Ads, you should implement a robust, redundancy-focused strategy by appending ValueTrack parameters directly to your Shopping Feed URL template at the campaign level to force manual UTM tagging, and more importantly, transition to a server-side tracking architecture using Google Tag Manager and a solution like Stape to ensure the data is captured and sent directly to Google Analytics and Google Ads, bypassing client-side browser issues.
The long answer is:
The reason you’re seeing “organic” in your tracking when you click a Shopping Ad, despite having Google Ads and Google Analytics linked, is likely due to the loss of the Google Click ID (gclid) that auto-tagging relies on, or a fallback to incorrect attribution if a tracking tag is delayed.
In many e-commerce setups, particularly those with redirects between the ad click and the final product page, the gclid can be stripped or the Google Analytics script might not execute fast enough to capture it, causing the session to default to the last non-direct channel, which could be an organic search.
To fix this immediately, you need to enforce tracking by implementing ValueTrack parameters into your Final URL Suffix or the Tracking Template at the Google Ads campaign or ad group level.
You would append parameters like utm_source=google and utm_medium=cpc and, most importantly, a granular parameter like utm_content={adgroupid} or utm_term={keyword}.
This creates a fallback that Google Analytics can recognize even if the gclid is lost.
However, for a 100% solution, the best strategy involves building a redundant, server-side data pipeline using the Google Ads API, the Shopify API, the Google Analytics Data API, and a server-side tagging environment like Stape or Google Cloud Platform.
The workflow is superior because it eliminates the reliance on the user’s browser: When a purchase is made on Shopify, the Shopify API sends the transaction details to your server-side environment.
Since you have persistent tracking in place (via a client_id or similar unique user identifier), you can correlate this transaction with the original click data.
You then use the Google Ads API to upload the sale as an Enhanced Conversion or as an offline conversion, passing the original gclid along with the transaction value directly back to the Google Ads platform.
Simultaneously, the server-side environment sends a validated purchase event using the Google Analytics Data API (via the Measurement Protocol) to GA4, ensuring the sale is correctly attributed using first-party data.
This server-to-server approach bypasses all browser-side issues, providing resilient attribution, resolving your immediate discrepancy, and ensuring sales credit is never lost for your Shopping Ads.
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