Since our Report Toaster app launch, I have been trying to make sense of our app listing traffic. As anyone reading this probably knows, Shopify allows us to add Google Analytics tracking to our app listing pages. While looking through the GA Acquisition reports, I saw something I didn't understand.
The Source highlighted in the image above of partners.shopify.com was unfamiliar to me. I consulted with the guru of app listing analytics, Daniel Sim of app store analytics.
His original theory was that they originated from our own test store installations. After reviewing the traffic source locations, we could attribute a few of the installs to our test stores. But the majority of them still didn't match.
After a few days of additional observation, we determined that this traffic is generally attributable to partners installing on managed stores! This has been an epiphany for me as we attempt outreach to new customers. We now know that in this situation the shop owner is unlikely to be our main point of contact.
I have learned a lot in the month since our initial launch. Much of it thanks to Daniel and his blog. This is one that I thought was worth sharing with the Shopify developer community.