Click Tracking

Click tracking records that someone followed a partner's link. It is useful, but for a Shopify app it is a weaker signal than founders expect, because a click and an install are two separate events that Shopify does not connect for you.

What a click actually records

When a merchant clicks a tracked link, you can log the partner, a timestamp, and drop a cookie in the merchant's browser. If that same browser later completes the install and your app reads the cookie, you have an exact match. That surviving cookie is the strongest thing click tracking gives you.

Why the cookie often does not survive

• •The merchant clicks on their phone and installs on their laptop.
• •The App Store opens in a context where your cookie is not present.
• •The merchant clears cookies, uses private browsing, or waits days before installing.

Any of these breaks the link between the click and the install. The click still happened; you just cannot prove the same person installed.

The thing a click cannot tell you

A click carries no store identity. There is no shop domain in a click, because the merchant has not installed anything yet. So if you try to match an install to whoever clicked most recently, you are guessing. On a busy app, one partner's click gets spread across every unrelated organic install in the window. This is the single most common way partner numbers get inflated.

A fallback, not a foundation

Use clicks as a fallback, not the foundation. The reliable signal is a code your app forwards at install (exact) or the cookie when it survives (exact). A last-click window, with no store identity behind it, should be treated as a guess that a human confirms, never an automatic payout.