The app replaces two of the manual steps on Shopify: adding Trace’s order code to Shopify’s customer events for the checkout, and keeping it in step when you change theme. It also sends each paid order from Shopify itself, so an order counts even when the browser never reaches the thank you page.
You do not need the app. The manual route still works and is covered in Install Trace on Shopify. The app does not edit your theme, so the tracking tag is not part of it.
Install it
You need the install link Trace sent you, and to be signed in to your shop as its owner or a staff member who can install apps.
- Open the install link from Trace. Shopify shows the Trace app for your shop. Choose Install.
- Shopify asks what the app may read and manage. It asks to read your orders, to create the Trace pixel for your shop and to read customer events, and nothing else.
- On the Trace screen that opens, press Connect to Trace. Trace opens in a new tab.
- Sign in to Trace, or create an account. New to Trace? The Trace screen also links to Create your account: set up your site there, then come back and press Connect to Trace. Choose the Trace site for your shop, or create one for the shop’s address. A new site then asks for its country, consent rules and cookie banner, as any new site does.
- Go back to the Shopify tab. The Trace screen shows the site and the Trace account you chose. Check them and press Connect.
The pixel starts from that moment. Nothing is connected until you press Connect in Shopify, so a link someone else opened cannot join your shop to their site.
To move the shop to a different Trace site later, press Connect to a different Trace site on the same screen. The new site’s key replaces the old one.
Entering the key by hand
If the connect does not work for you, or you are setting up a shop for someone else, choose Enter a key by hand on the Trace screen, paste the tracking key from the site’s install page in Trace and Save. It does the same as the connect. There is nothing to paste into a theme, and changing theme later does not break it.
Paying for Trace
The app is free to install and shows no results. They are in Trace, which needs a Trace account. A new site starts on the Free plan. A site connected through the app is billed by Trace, as any site is. Choose or change its plan in Trace, under Settings, Billing, and pay by card. Shopify does not charge you for Trace.
What it sends
Two things reach Trace from the pixel and the webhooks: what a visitor did on the storefront, and each order.
- The pixel sends page views and the completed checkout to Trace. It does not load the tracking tag. It reads the visitor key the tag has stored on your storefront, when there is one, so an order can join the visit that led to it.
- Shopify tells the app when an order is paid and when it is refunded. The app sends the order number, the total, the currency and the time. If the order used a discount code, it sends that code and the discount it gave. A test order is never sent.
Nothing else from the checkout is sent: no name, no email, no address, no items.
Refunds
When you refund an order in Shopify, the app reads the order back from Shopify and sends Trace what it is worth now, which is its total less everything refunded. The value in Trace drops to that. It never rises, so a late or repeated message changes nothing. Codes shows the lower value too. How server side tracking works in Trace explains what a refund changes.
Consent
The pixel runs only for a visitor who allowed analytics, where Shopify’s own customer privacy settings apply.
Shopify’s paid order message cannot carry a visitor key. On a site with UK or EU consent rules, that means it records nothing by itself: the order is recorded by the pixel when the visitor allowed analytics, and the paid order message for the same order is dropped. On a site in the United States or elsewhere, an order that no visitor can be tied to is counted in the anonymous totals with its value. How server side tracking works in Trace has the full rules, and How consent flags work explains how Trace reads consent.
If orders are missing
Check the tracking key on the app’s screen first, then check that the orders you expect are paid, because only a paid order is sent. If you had already added Trace’s order code to customer events by hand, you can leave it: Trace counts an order once however many ways it hears about it.
Removing the app stops the pixel and the orders at once. It does not delete anything Trace has already recorded.