Predictive Forecasting: Shopify + Google Ads
Can you trust your forecast for next month? askotter reads Shopify and Google Ads together and answers it for your business, by text.
How does predictive forecasting with Shopify and Google Ads work for a small business?
askotter reads Shopify and Google Ads side by side so it can forecast with live numbers from every connected account. Forecasts that update as your numbers change, with a likely range attached.
Read the full answerShow less
The owner asks follow-up questions by text.
- From Shopify
- Orders and revenue, Product performance, Customer profiles and segments.
- From Google Ads
- Campaign performance, Keyword data and quality scores, Ad group and creative performance.
- Status
- Both connect today.
- Not for
- Replacing Shopify or Google Ads. Both keep working exactly as they do now.
Can you trust your forecast for next month?
Most small business forecasts are last year's numbers in a spreadsheet. They miss that your ad spend doubled this quarter or that the busy season started early.
How askotter handles it
askotter reads Shopify and Google Ads side by side, so it can forecast with live numbers from every connected account.
A person checks the result before it reaches you. This is part of our conversion rate optimization work.
How Shopify and Google Ads records line up
Shopify and Google Ads can both hold the Google click ID that Google Ads adds to the landing page URL when auto-tagging is on. That ties one paid click to what the same visitor did afterwards.
Shopify and Google Ads both keep the UTM source, medium and campaign values from the visit, so activity lines up campaign by campaign even when no single person can be matched.
Shared between the two: the Google click ID (gclid) and the UTM campaign tags.
What predictive forecasting uses from each
Predictive forecasting needs enough history to see the seasonal pattern.
From Shopify that means daily order counts by product and inventory levels. From Google Ads it means impression share and budget pacing.
What each tool sees on its ownShow less
Shopify on its own
Shopify sees the order and the landing page. It has no view of the ad impressions, emails or searches that came before that session.
Timing. Shopify writes each order the moment it is placed, including the landing page and referring site of the session that bought.
Access. Read-only access through the Shopify Admin API, approved from the store admin.
Google Ads on its own
Google Ads counts the conversions it can see through its own tag. It cannot tell a refunded sale from a kept one, or a junk lead from a good one.
Timing. Google Ads credits a conversion back to the date of the click, so yesterday's conversion count can still rise for days.
Access. The Google Ads API with read access to the account.
Related guides
- Which Integrations Are Worth Connecting. An integration earns its place when it changes a decision. Most of them just move data from one screen you ignore to another.
- Why Your Google Ads Aren't Converting (And How to Fix It). Clicks without conversions is the most expensive problem in marketing.
Services that use these connections
Other analyses: Shopify + Google Ads
Questions about Shopify + Google Ads
Do I need a developer to connect Shopify and Google Ads?
How is askotter's Predictive Forecasting different from what Shopify shows on its own?
Connect Shopify + Google Ads. Five minutes.
Plans are on the digital marketing pricing page.
Self-managed is $99/mo and scales with the compute you use. Our team runs it from $600/mo.