Contribution margin report

Contribution margin reports are a way to track the sales generated by your advertising campaigns. This allows you to see what your rate of return is both overall as an average per order.

Early access

Contribution margin reports are in beta, and may not be available to all merchants.

Contribution margin for Google Ads

The Contribution margin for Google Ads page shows how well your Google Ads performed over the last quarter. Orders are attributed to Google Ads when a customer is referred to your store from an advertisement on Google and places an order during that session. Refer here to learn more about how Shopify attributes orders.

Note

The Contribution margin for Google Ads report shows how well your Google Ads performed over the last quarter. The dates for the quarters are:

• Q1: 1 January – 31 March
• Q2: 1 April – 30 June
• Q3: 1 July – 30 September
• Q4: 1 October – 31 December

View Contribution margin for Google Ads

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Analytics > Reports.
2. Click Categories.
3. Click Finances to filter the reports to show only finances reports.
4. Click Contribution margin for Google Ads.

The Contribution margin for Google Ads report uses the following terms:

Description of Contribution margin for Google Ads report terms

Term	Definition
Net Sales	Equates to gross sales - discounts - returns. Net sales does not include shipping charges or taxes. It is a positive number for a sale on the date that an order was placed, and a negative number for a return on the date that an order was refunded.
Ads Spend	The total amount spent on Google advertising.
Cost of items sold	The total cost of the units sold through Google advertising during this time period. If you have not entered a unit cost for a product, then its cost will be considered 0 for this total. If you make changes to product unit costs, you will not see these changes reflected in the report until next quarter.
Orders	The total number of orders acquired through Google advertising.
Contibution margin per order	The average revenue generated per order acquired through Google advertising. The contribution margin is calculated by subtracting variable costs, such as ad spend and cost of items sold, from net sales.
Total contribution margin	The total revenue generated by orders acquired through Google advertising. The contribution margin is calculated by subtracting variable costs, such as ad spend and the cost of items sold, from net sales.