# Analytics

> Read the Sphen KPI strip, connect GA4, understand what the Coming soon banner means for session and revenue figures, and use browser checks.

Canonical URL: https://sphen.ai/help/analytics/
Last updated: 2026-08-14

## What it does

**Analytics** is built to answer three questions: are AI assistants citing you, are they sending traffic, and is that traffic buying. Today it answers the first one. Session, revenue and order figures are waiting on Shopify's approval for protected customer data. The permissions themselves are granted when you install — what stays switched off is the measurement behind them, so the web pixel never starts collecting, those tiles render “—”, and a **Coming soon** banner at the top of the page says so. The tab row is **Overview**, **Blog** and **Browser checks**; **Rankings**, **Prompts** and **Sources** open from the **AI visibility deep dives** dropdown in that same row.

### Why it matters

GEO work dies when nobody can tie it to a business number. What this page gives you today is the citation half of that sentence: your visibility score and share of voice moved from _a_ to _b_, with Search Console clicks and — once connected — GA4 sessions underneath it. That is already a defensible budget line. The revenue half arrives when Shopify approves the customer-data access.

## Setup

1. Open **Settings → Integrations** and press **Connect GA4**. Finish the Google sign-in in the new tab; Sphen only requests read access.
2. Back in Sphen, pick the property that belongs to this store under **GA4 property** and press **Save property**. Traffic appears on the overview within a day.
3. Open **Analytics** and set **Range** to the window you care about. Read the **Coming soon** banner once, then dismiss it — it stays dismissed.
4. Work **Overview** for the KPI strip, then **Blog** for per-article numbers.
5. Use **Browser checks** as a sanity check on the sampled numbers — those are real guest-browser sessions, not API samples.
6. For per-question detail, open **AI visibility deep dives** in the tab row and pick **Prompts**, **Rankings** or **Sources**.

## Reading the results

Read the KPI labels literally, because the methods differ. **Visibility score** and **Share of voice** are _sampled_: averages over prompt samples, never an exhaustive scan. **AI sessions**, **AI revenue** and **Blog revenue** are the tiles currently showing “—”. When the customer-data access is approved they will need about 24 hours of traffic to fill, and they will be a _floor, not a total_: only visits and orders Sphen can positively attribute are counted, so the real number is higher.

So the healthy picture you can read today is visibility and share of voice trending up across scans, with Search Console clicks following. An **AI Shopping** tab with per-product readiness and AI-quoted prices is rolling out gradually and is not switched on for every store — where you have it, **Avg. readiness** above 80 is green and the **AI shopping funnel** should not lose everything between sessions and carts.

## Troubleshooting

### The session and revenue tiles show “—”.

That is the current, expected state for every store, not a setup mistake: Shopify's approval for protected customer data is still pending, so the measurement behind those figures stays switched off — which is also why **Connections & status** reports the web pixel as inactive even though the permission was granted at install. Nothing you can do in the app changes it. Visibility, share of voice and Search Console metrics are unaffected.

### GA4 connection expired.

Google stopped accepting the stored access — usually because it was revoked or the account changed. Open **Settings → Integrations** and press **Reconnect GA4**. See [Troubleshooting](/help/troubleshooting).

### The visibility numbers are empty too.

No AI visibility scan has finished yet. Start one from the **Overview** page and check **Activity** for the job; see [AI visibility](/help/ai-visibility).

## Frequently asked questions

### Will AI sessions be my full AI traffic once they appear?

No. Only visits Sphen can positively classify as coming from an AI assistant will be counted, and only consented visits reach the pixel at all. The number is deliberately conservative — read it as a lower bound and a trend line.

### Do I need GA4?

No, but without it you have no traffic-side view at all right now. Visibility, share of voice, the deep dives and browser checks work without any GA4 connection.

### My store is a development store and the numbers look invented.

They are. Development stores show sample data as a preview, marked with a **Sample data** banner. Real analytics replace it automatically once the store has live visitors and orders.

## Still stuck?

Support answers installation, catalog sync, audit, billing, privacy, and account questions for the SPHEN.AI Shopify app. https://sphen.ai/support/