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Untracked eCommerce - Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Shopify/BigCommerce
Untracked eCommerce - Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Shopify/BigCommerce

Issues with untracked eCommerce or seeing high revenue going to untracked eCommerce channel?

Jim Backwell avatar
Written by Jim Backwell
Updated over 5 months ago

What data do we pull from Google Analytics (GA4)?

We pull the following key data from Google Analytics:

  • Transaction IDs: Identifies individual sales transactions.

  • Channels and Campaigns: Tracks which marketing channels (e.g., organic, paid search) and campaigns are driving customer acquisition.

  • Sessions: The number of sessions visiting your site, split by channels and campaigns.

  • Product Views: Tracks product views, contributing to the product conversion rate analysis.

How do we use this data?

We match the GA4 transaction IDs with your Shopify/BigCommerce transaction IDs to identify the channel through which customers made their purchases. This data allows us to highlight which channels are responsible for acquiring customers and assess the revenue and profitability generated by each channel.

For example if a customer were to click on a Google Shopping advert for a handbag and then make a purchase this would be tracked in GA4 under something like:

Example:

In GA4, the transaction data we would access would include things like:

  • Transaction ID: 123456

  • Channel: Paid Search - Shopping

  • Campaign: Bags shopping campaign

In Shopify/BigCommerce, this would appear as:

  • Product: Red Handbag

  • Customer ID: ABCDE

  • Transaction ID: 123456

  • Revenue: $100

If you don’t have the transaction ID tracking in GA4 then we can’t match on the transaction ID to get the channel or campaign information.


Common Issues & Troubleshooting

High Untracked eCommerce Revenue

What's normal?

It is typical to have 10-20% of revenue untracked due to factors like ad blockers and private browsers. If untracked revenue exceeds this range, there may be an issue with your GA4 and Shopify/BigCommerce integration.

Troubleshooting steps

First Identify when the issue began:

In Conjura, navigate to the Performance Overview dashboard. Check the Gross Revenue by Channel over time to identify when untracked eCommerce revenue started to spike.

For example in the image below a noticeable increase in untracked revenue began in late July. You can then use the date filter to identify the specific date that the issue began. Then review any website changes on that date that could have caused the issue.

If all revenue is going to 'untracked':

  1. Check if you've connected the correct GA4 account.

  2. If the account is the right one, then check that this account is set up correctly to track your transactions:

    1. In GA4, go to Reports → Monetization → Transactions.

    2. If no transactions appear, you need to set up basic eCommerce tracking.

    3. Follow Shopify’s guide here or BigCommerce’s guide here to establish the initial connection.

    4. Remember, historical data is lost, and tracking will only start once the setup is complete.

If a high proportion, but not all revenue, is untracked:

  1. Use Google’s Tag Assistant (https://tagassistant.google.com/):

  2. Enter your website's domain and open the debugging page.

  3. You should see tags for Google Ads and GA4. GA tags look like these below:

4. Go through a purchase journey on your website in the debugging page and view the hits at the bottom of the tag assistant screen.

5. Complete a test order. If the "purchase" hit is missing, there’s an issue.

A common issue we see is cookie restrictions being too harsh so unless someone accepts cookies, the transaction ID isn’t tracked. To test this try accepting cookies and running through these steps again.

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