Read the sessions and traffic report in Shopify
Sessions tell you where the visitors came from, before any of them bought anything. The Sessions by referrer report splits the week by the place each visit started, and the Sessions over time report shows how the week moved day by day.
Written · Shopify admin, desktop steps · 6 minutes read
The worked example
| Period | 3 to 9 November 2026 |
| Sessions | 3,400 |
| Visitors | 2,915 |
| Orders | 88 |
| Conversion rate | 2.59% |
Download the record: sessions-by-referrer.csv (146 bytes).
A sessions record for the worked example week. The five referrer rows sum to 3,400 sessions.
1Open the reports list
From your Shopify admin, go to Analytics then Reports. Click the Category filter and click Acquisition to show only the acquisition reports.
2Open Sessions by referrer
Click Sessions by referrer. It shows whether your visitors are coming to your store directly, from search, or by a referral. In the worked example, 1,240 sessions were direct and 986 came from search.
3Open Sessions over time
Click Sessions over time. It shows the number of visitors and sessions for the time range, and you can pick the unit of time in the Group by drop-down menu.
4Compare with the previous week
Compare the week with the previous 7 days. Sessions and visitors are counted from cookies. The Visitors over time report defaults to the last 7 days and compares it with the data from the previous 7 days, so use that pairing when you compare the two weeks.
5Read sessions beside visitors
Read the Visitors over time report beside the sessions report. A session ends after 30 minutes of inactivity, and the same visitor can have more than one session, so sessions are usually higher than visitors.
6Check the conversion rate
Divide the orders for the week by the sessions for the week. In the worked example, 88 orders divided by 3,400 sessions gives a conversion rate of 2.59%. A referrer with many sessions and few orders is a traffic source, not a sales source.
7Export the report
Click Export to download the report as a CSV file. When you open an acquisition report, the data is up to date, give or take a few seconds.
The arithmetic
| Referrer | Sessions | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Direct | 1,240 | 36.47% |
| Google search | 986 | 29.00% |
| 512 | 15.06% | |
| 388 | 11.41% | |
| 274 | 8.06% | |
| Total | 3,400 | 100.00% |
Conversion rate is 88 orders divided by 3,400 sessions, which is 2.59%. Sessions per visitor are 3,400 divided by 2,915, which is 1.17.
Held at the counter
Sessions are not visitors. One visitor can have several sessions, because a session ends after 30 minutes of inactivity. A customer who browses for 20 minutes, leaves for two hours and comes back for 10 minutes counts as two sessions and one visitor.
Acquisition reports show visitors only, not sales. These reports do not show converted sales or the amount of orders, only visitors to your website. To compare channels on sales, open the Total sales by referrer report instead.
Your own visits can count as sessions. If you view your online store from the desktop admin by any method other than clicking View store, the visit counts as a session in your reports. Viewing from the Shopify app on a phone counts too.
Sources
- Acquisition reports — Shopify's help pages: the Sessions by referrer and Sessions over time reports, the 30-minute session rule, and the visitors-only scope.
- Shopify analytics — Shopify's help pages: the Analytics dashboard and the Reports page.