Set up analytics and conversion tracking

Analytics in commerce is a mess. Here's how to set up a sane stack without 12 conflicting numbers.

SellStein's native analytics

Reports → Analytics. Built in, no setup. Tracks:

• Sessions, page views, conversion rate
• Products viewed, added to cart, purchased
• Revenue, AOV, repeat-customer rate
• Traffic sources (organic, direct, referral, paid, email, social)
• Cohort retention by signup month

Source of truth for store-internal metrics. Doesn't track anything that leaves SellStein (your blog on Substack, your ad spend on Meta).

Google Analytics 4

Settings → Integrations → Google Analytics → connect. We auto-emit the GA4 ecommerce events:

• view_item, add_to_cart, begin_checkout, purchase, refund

Ecommerce reports in GA4 work without further config. Goal tracking, audience definitions, cross-domain tracking. The GA4 standard stuff.

Meta Pixel

Settings → Integrations → Meta Pixel → enter pixel ID. We fire:

• PageView, ViewContent, AddToCart, InitiateCheckout, Purchase, AddPaymentInfo

For Conversions API (server-side, more accurate than browser pixel post-iOS-14) → Settings → Integrations → Meta CAPI → enter access token. Both pixel and CAPI fire in parallel. Meta dedupes on the event_id we send.

TikTok, Pinterest, Snap, Twitter

All same pattern. Settings → Integrations → click the network → enter ID + access token. Standard ecommerce events fire automatically.

UTM parameters

For paid traffic and email, append UTMs to the destination URL: utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_content, utm_term. We capture these on landing and attribute the resulting order to the right campaign.

The convention that scales:

• utm_source = the platform (google, meta, tiktok, newsletter)
• utm_medium = the channel type (cpc, social, email, organic)
• utm_campaign = the campaign name (spring-2026, brand-awareness)

Don't get clever. Marketing ops people who change UTM conventions every quarter regret it within a year.

Attribution

By default we use last-non-direct attribution: the last marketing source before the order, ignoring direct visits. This matches Google Analytics's default and is the convention you'll find in 90% of the world.

Custom attribution: Settings → Analytics → Attribution model. Options:

• First-touch (gives credit to discovery)
• Last-touch (gives credit to closing)
• Linear (split equally across touchpoints)
• Position-based (40% first, 40% last, 20% middle)
• Data-driven (machine learning per-customer)

If you spend less than $5k/month on ads, last-non-direct is enough. Beyond that, data-driven beats the alternatives.

Why your numbers won't match

Meta says 50 conversions, GA says 47, SellStein says 49. Normal. Causes:

• Different attribution windows (Meta's default is 7-day click; GA's is 30-day)
• Browser blocking (Safari ITP, ad blockers)
• Different definitions of "conversion" (Meta counts add-to-cart in some accounts)

Use SellStein's number for revenue (it's the only one that has the actual money). Use platform-native numbers for that platform's optimisation (Meta's pixel data optimises Meta's ad delivery. GA's data won't help).