Customer Acquisition Cost By Source

Read-only: estimates customer acquisition cost (CAC) per traffic source by joining order count per landing site / referrer with configurable ad spend.

shopify-admin-customer-acquisition-cost-by-source


Purpose

Estimates customer acquisition cost (CAC) for each traffic source by combining the number of new-customer orders attributed to a landing page / referrer with a configurable ad spend input per source. Output answers: "for every dollar spent on source X, how many new customers did we acquire and at what unit cost?" Read-only — no mutations. Provides the data foundation for paid-media budget reallocation.


Prerequisites

  • Authenticated Shopify CLI session: shopify store auth --store --scopes read_orders,read_customers
  • API scopes: read_orders, read_customers

  • Parameters


    ParameterTypeRequiredDefaultDescription
    storestringyesStore domain (e.g., mystore.myshopify.com)
    days_backintegerno30Lookback window for orders to attribute
    ad_spendobjectno{}Map of source name → spend in store currency, e.g. {"google": 4500, "meta": 3200, "tiktok": 1800}
    new_customers_onlyboolnotrueCount only first-order customers as "acquired"
    min_orders_per_sourceintegerno5Minimum orders for a source to be reported
    formatstringnohumanOutput format: human or json

    Safety


    > ℹ️ Read-only skill — no mutations are executed. Safe to run at any time. Ad spend values are caller-provided; this skill does not pull from any ad platform.


    Workflow Steps


  • OPERATION: orders — query
  • Inputs: query: "created_at:>=''", first: 250, select customer { id, numberOfOrders }, customerJourneySummary { firstVisit { landingPage referrerUrl source } }, landingPageUrl, referrerUrl, totalPriceSet, pagination cursor

    Expected output: All orders in the window with referral and customer attribution; paginate until hasNextPage: false


  • Group orders by normalized source. Resolution order:
  • customerJourneySummary.firstVisit.source if present
  • Else parse domain from referrerUrl
  • Else parse landingPageUrl UTM params (utm_source)
  • Else bucket as direct

  • If new_customers_only: true, drop orders where customer.numberOfOrders > 1 so each customer is counted once

  • Aggregate per source: orders_count, new_customers_count, revenue_attributed

  • Join with ad_spend map: cac = ad_spend[source] / new_customers_count. Sources without spend data report cac: null (organic / unattributed)

  • Filter to sources with orders_count >= min_orders_per_source

  • GraphQL Operations


    # orders:query — validated against api_version 2025-01
    query OrdersWithAttribution($query: String!, $after: String) {
      orders(first: 250, after: $after, query: $query) {
        edges {
          node {
            id
            name
            createdAt
            landingPageUrl
            referrerUrl
            customerJourneySummary {
              firstVisit {
                landingPage
                referrerUrl
                source
                sourceType
                utmParameters {
                  source
                  medium
                  campaign
                }
              }
            }
            totalPriceSet {
              shopMoney {
                amount
                currencyCode
              }
            }
            customer {
              id
              numberOfOrders
            }
          }
        }
        pageInfo {
          hasNextPage
          endCursor
        }
      }
    }
    

    Session Tracking


    Claude MUST emit the following output at each stage. This is mandatory.


    On start, emit:

    ╔══════════════════════════════════════════════╗
    ║  SKILL: Customer Acquisition Cost by Source  ║
    ║  Store: <store domain>                       ║
    ║  Started: <YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM UTC>             ║
    ╚══════════════════════════════════════════════╝
    

    After each step, emit:

    [N/TOTAL] <QUERY|MUTATION>  <OperationName>
              → Params: <brief summary of key inputs>
              → Result: <count or outcome>
    

    On completion, emit:


    For format: human (default):

    ══════════════════════════════════════════════
    CAC BY SOURCE  (<days_back> days)
      Orders analyzed:        <n>
      New customers acquired: <n>
      Total ad spend (input): $<amount>
      Blended CAC:            $<amount>
    
      By Source (sorted by CAC ascending):
        google      Customers: <n>  Spend: $<n>   CAC: $<n>
        meta        Customers: <n>  Spend: $<n>   CAC: $<n>
        direct      Customers: <n>  Spend: —      CAC: organic
        referral    Customers: <n>  Spend: —      CAC: organic
    
      Output: cac_by_source_<date>.csv
    ══════════════════════════════════════════════
    

    For format: json, emit:

    {
      "skill": "customer-acquisition-cost-by-source",
      "store": "<domain>",
      "period_days": 30,
      "orders_analyzed": 0,
      "new_customers": 0,
      "blended_cac": 0,
      "currency": "USD",
      "by_source": [],
      "output_file": "cac_by_source_<date>.csv"
    }
    

    Output Format

    CSV file cac_by_source_.csv with columns:

    source, orders_count, new_customers_count, revenue_attributed, ad_spend, cac, currency


    Error Handling

    ErrorCauseRecovery
    THROTTLEDAPI rate limit exceededWait 2 seconds, retry up to 3 times
    Empty ad_spendNo spend providedReport orders / customers per source with cac: null
    Missing customerJourneySummaryOlder orders or guest checkoutFall back to referrerUrllandingPageUrldirect
    All orders from directNo referrer capturedLikely tracking misconfiguration — surface as warning

    Best Practices

  • Provide ad spend for the same window as days_back — mismatched windows produce misleading CAC numbers.
  • Pair with customer-cohort-analysis to validate that low-CAC sources also produce high-LTV customers.
  • Sources reported as direct often hide attribution leakage — investigate UTM tagging and referrer policies before drawing conclusions.
  • Treat output as estimated CAC — Shopify's first-touch attribution does not capture cross-device journeys, so sources that rely on view-through (display, video) will be undercounted.
  • Re-run weekly to catch CAC drift before campaigns become unprofitable.