The conversation join key

To say that an order came from a conversation, AISA needs something on the order that points back to it. That something is the conversation join key: an opaque value starting with atr_, created by AISA for one conversation. Treat it as a label. Do not parse it or rely on its format.

This page explains what the key does on a Shopify store. For the report built on it, see Sales report.

Who gets a keyCopy Anchor Link

A conversation gets a key when all of these hold:

• the site has a Shopify connector;
• it is a real shopper conversation, on your site or on your AI Storefront. Playground conversations and evaluation runs never get one;
• the shopper has not objected to measurement.

A shopper who has not objected gets a key, with no consent step in between. A shopper who objected gets no key, and nothing is put on their cart.

On your site, the key is created at the shopper's first message. On the AI Storefront, which has no store cart of its own, it is created when the assistant first writes a cart.

Where the key goesCopy Anchor Link

The same key is carried on two different carts, because on Shopify they are two different objects.

• Your store's own cart. The web tag sets the key as the cart attribute iadvize_attribution, from the shopper's browser, on your storefront. An order checked out from that cart carries the attribute.
• The assistant's cart. When the assistant creates or updates a cart, AISA puts the key in the cart's attribution field with the tag iadvize_attribution. An order placed from the checkout link the assistant gave carries the key in its landing page address.

If a cart was last written for conversation A and then for conversation B, it carries B's key afterwards.

What you will seeCopy Anchor Link

• On carts and orders in Shopify, the iadvize_attribution attribute, on orders from your store's cart.
• In your marketing reports, for orders from the assistant's cart. Shopify replaces the order's landing page with a link carrying the tag. The campaign (UTM) parameters from the page the shopper first arrived on are replaced with it, in Shopify's own reports. Shopify does not document this. We saw it on test orders on a development store. AISA adds no campaign parameter of its own.
• Orders from your store's own cart keep their landing page and UTMs. This was measured too.

The data-usage notice shoppers can open from the assistant names the key, with how long it is kept and how to object.

How an order is linkedCopy Anchor Link

AISA reads the key from the order, from the order attribute first and from the landing page address if there is none. It counts an order for a conversation only when the key matches that conversation's key exactly, within your organization. A key that matches nothing, such as one typed into a URL by hand, links nothing. A key is never guessed, and a product the assistant recommended is never used to link an order.

Deleting a conversation removes its key from the orders that carried it. The order stays.

When a shopper objectsCopy Anchor Link

• Before any cart was tagged: no key is created, and no order is linked.
• After your store's cart was tagged, on the same page: the tag removes the attribute from the cart, so an order placed afterwards is not linked from it.

Orders that stay unlinkedCopy Anchor Link

• An order placed where the tag did not run, such as a headless Shopify storefront that does not accept the cart update, or a store not on Shopify.
• An order checked out before the assistant's first reply reached the page.
• An order from a shopper who objected.
• An order whose cart was written by a conversation that is not the one that led to the sale: the last conversation to write the cart wins.

An unlinked order is still recorded when it reaches AISA. It is read as not assisted, never as a guess.

RelatedCopy Anchor Link

• Set up Shopify order webhooks: how orders and their key reach AISA.
• Send orders from another platform.