Account setup checklist

For · New operators connecting their first ad platforms and Shopify store
Time · 4 min read
Next · Setting up your business profile

Trellis reads every connected ad account to surface what your platform dashboards can’t: contribution margin across every account, longitudinal change patterns, and attribution you can trust. For that to work, your accounts need to be configured correctly before your first audit.

This checklist walks through what to set up and why it matters.

The Short Version

• Exactly one conversion action should be Primary in Google Ads. The Google & YouTube app sets several, which makes bid optimization treat every Add to Cart as a purchase.
• Both platforms need an account-level tracking template, because attribution validation reconciles platform conversions against your actual Shopify orders through UTM parameters.
• Microsoft’s “Auto-tagging for URLs” conflicts with the tracking template and must be off.
• Do not create manual conversion goals in Microsoft Ads. The Microsoft Channel app owns conversion tracking, and a second goal duplicates every purchase.
• Online-only stores should disable local listings in Merchant Center, or Google flags the whole catalog for missing inventory data it was never going to have.
• Allow 24-48 hours after setup before verifying, and about a week of clean data before tracking_accuracy settles into the validated band.

The checklist at a glance

Steps appear below in the order listed. The last column is how you know the step is finished.

Before you begin

Each section below takes 5-10 minutes. Most steps are one-time configurations.

Google Ads setup

Step 1: Install Google & YouTube app in Shopify

1. In your Shopify Admin, go to Apps → search for Google & YouTube → Install
2. Follow the prompts to connect your Google Ads account and Google Merchant Center
3. The app handles conversion tracking and product feed sync automatically

Step 2: Set your primary conversion action

The Google & YouTube app creates several conversion actions automatically (Purchase, Add to Cart, Checkout, and others). By default, all of them may be set as “Primary”, which means Google counts every Add to Cart as if it were a purchase when optimizing your bids.

You need to fix this manually:

1. In Google Ads, go to Goals → Summary
2. Find the Purchase action → click it → set Action optimization = Primary
3. For every other action (Shopping Cart, Checkout, Add to Cart, Calls, etc.) → set Action optimization = Secondary (observe only)

Why this matters: Trellis and every one of your campaigns depend on accurate purchase counts. When micro-conversions count as purchases, bid optimization runs on inflated signals. The purchase count shown in your dashboard stops meaning what you think it means.

Step 3: Confirm your tracking template

Trellis reconciles your Google Ads conversion data against actual Shopify orders. For this to work, every click from Google needs to pass campaign information through to Shopify via UTM parameters.

Ask your Trellis contact to confirm your account-level tracking template is set correctly. If you’re setting up independently:

1. In Google Ads, go to Settings → Account Settings → Tracking
2. Confirm a tracking template is set (your Trellis contact can provide the correct value)

Microsoft Ads setup

Step 1: Install Microsoft Channel app in Shopify

1. In your Shopify Admin, go to Apps → search for Microsoft Channel → Install
2. Connect your Microsoft Advertising account
3. The app installs the UET tag and creates one conversion goal (Purchase) automatically

Step 2: Confirm your tracking template

Microsoft Ads needs a tracking template to pass campaign information through to Shopify via UTM parameters, for the same reason as Google.

Ask your Trellis contact to confirm your account-level tracking template is set correctly. If you’re setting up independently:

1. In Microsoft Ads, go to Settings → Account-level URL options → Tracking template
2. Confirm a tracking template is set (your Trellis contact can provide the correct value)
3. Confirm “Auto-tagging for URLs” is turned off; it is Microsoft’s built-in UTM generator and conflicts with the template

Step 3: Do not create manual conversion goals

The Microsoft Channel app manages conversion tracking entirely. If you or a previous agency created additional conversion goals in Microsoft Ads, they will duplicate your purchase counts.

Check: In Microsoft Ads, go to Conversion Tracking → Conversion Goals. You should see one goal associated with the Shopify integration. If you see multiple goals or any goal you don’t recognize, contact your Trellis contact before running your first audit.

Google Merchant Center

Step 1: Confirm your Merchant Center is linked to Google Ads

1. In Google Ads, go to Tools → Linked accounts → Google Merchant Center
2. Confirm your Merchant Center account is listed and linked

Without this link, Shopping campaigns cannot serve.

Step 2: Disable local listings (online-only stores)

If your store is online only and you do not use Shopify POS for a physical retail location, you should have Local Listings disabled in Merchant Center.

When Local Listings is enabled for an online-only store, Google expects local store inventory data that doesn’t exist, and penalizes every product in your catalog with a “Missing inventory data” flag that suppresses their visibility.

To check: In Google Merchant Center, go to Growth → Manage programs. If “Free local product listings” or any local program is enabled, turn it off.

Exception: If you run a physical retail store through Shopify POS, local listings can be valuable, but they require a properly configured local inventory feed. Reach out to your Trellis contact before enabling.

Facebook & Instagram by Meta

Coming Soon: Meta platform support is not yet available in Trellis. This section will be completed when Meta ad account integration is supported.

Verification: how to tell if it’s working

After completing the steps above, wait 24-48 hours for new order data to accumulate, then check:

Attribution window: what time range to use

Both platforms Trellis supports (Google, Microsoft) should be set to a 30-day click attribution window. This is what drives the query window rule below.

When checking Shopify to verify attribution, always query 30 days beyond the period you’re checking. A 30-day audit means a 60-day Shopify query window. Clicks from the last days of your audit period can take up to 30 days to convert. A shorter window will under-report and make your tracking look worse than it is.

The query below uses SINCE -60d to reflect this.

Channel split query (Shopify)

Run in Shopify Admin → Analytics → Reports. Shows sessions, orders, and revenue rolled up by channel. Use this to confirm overall channel coverage and conversion rates.

FROM sessions, sales
  SHOW sessions, total_sales, orders, (orders / sessions) AS conversion_rate,
    average_order_value, new_customers, returning_customers
  WHERE utm_campaign IS NOT NULL
  GROUP BY utm_campaign, referring_channel, traffic_type, utm_source, utm_medium
    WITH GROUP_TOTALS, LAST_NON_DIRECT_CLICK_ATTRIBUTION, TOTALS
  SINCE -60d UNTIL today
  ORDER BY utm_campaign ASC, referring_channel ASC, traffic_type ASC,
    utm_source ASC, utm_medium ASC
  LIMIT 1000

You should see rows for each active campaign with utm_source=google (Search) or utm_source=bing (Microsoft), alongside sessions, orders, and revenue. If paid campaigns are present but have no UTM rows, or show utm_campaign={campaign} as a literal value, the tracking template is not set correctly.

Note for Shopping campaigns: Google Shopping orders appear as utm_campaign=sag_organic. This is expected; the Google & YouTube app uses its own tagging for Shopping and bypasses the account-level template.

Individual order check

Go to a recent order → Timeline section. You should see utm_source=google or utm_source=bing with a campaign value in the order’s source.

Google Ads conversion column check

In Google Ads → Campaigns view, add the Conversions and All conversions columns. If your setup is correct, these two numbers will be close to each other. A large gap (e.g., Conversions = 5, All conversions = 300) means micro-conversions are still set as Primary.

It typically takes one week of clean data before tracking_accuracy stabilizes into the validated band (≥ 0.80).

What Trellis does from here

Once your accounts are configured, Trellis performs attribution validation before every audit. If a gap appears (a goal accidentally promoted to Primary, a tracking template removed, a duplicate conversion goal added), Trellis will surface it in your audit report before it affects your recommendations.

You don’t need to track this yourself. That’s what the audit is for.