Have you mapped out a data plan for 2023 yet? If you’re selling on a major DTC platform like Shopify or BigCommerce, GA4 is probably on your mind. With the sunsetting of Universal Analytics (GA3 or the “old version” of Google Analytics) on the horizon, it’s time to get going with event-based tracking. Many brands have been procrastinating about setting up GA4 – or, worse, only setting it up halfway so that browsing behavior is tracked but revenue and conversions are missing. But can you blame them? Shopify isn’t planning to release native GA4 integration until March 2023 at the earliest (and nobody’s expecting it to work well for serious DTC brands) BigCommerce released a beta version of their GA4 integration in November, but it’s extremely minimal, tracking only begin_checkout and purchase events Manual setup is costly and confusing (and has to be maintained every time you change your site or checkout flow) GA4 revenue tracking should be your top priority, but there’s a lot of confusion around GA4, made worse by Shopify apps that claim to offer GA4 integration but only offer client-side tracking. It shouldn’t be so complicated. At Littledata we’ve already fixed GA4 tracking for hundreds of top DTC brands. In this post I’ll show you how to check if you’ve set up GA4 correctly to capture orders and revenue, and how to start tracking ecommerce conversions today in the most secure and reliable way possible. Follow this guide to GA4 and you’ll be on your way to ecommerce data tracking in no time. We’ll look at how to get from this: To this: How to check if you’re tracking GA4 revenue and conversions After creating a new GA4 property and following the setup assistant to create a new data stream, you might have noticed that you’re instructed to copy and paste the Google tag (gtag.js) script on every page of your ecommerce site. Once you’ve added the Google tag to your site and linked your GA4 property, everything will just start tracking automatically, right? Wrong. With the basic script all you get are engagement events such as page_view, session_start, view_search_result, and click. Obviously these “automatic events” are super important, but they don’t tell you what happens post-click. Here’s how to check if your GA4 ecommerce setup is working or not. 1. Check your Acquisition reporting in GA4 There are two places to look to see if you’re capturing ecommerce conversions. First, the Acquisition reports. You’ll see user and traffic engagement details grouped by channel, but no conversion or revenue data exists. You’re seeing which organic or paid channels are bringing visitors to your store, but you can’t tell if you’re generating any revenue from these visitors. GA4 revenue reporting not showing is one of the most asked questions by merchants and performance marketers. 2. Check your Engagement and Monetization reporting in GA4Taking a step further, check your Engagement and Monetization reports. Do you see GA4 reporting data about cart updates, interactions with the checkout flow, or any purchase or revenue data? If revenue is missing in GA4’s monetization overview, you need to start tracking ecommerce activity ASAP. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a lot of data points that lead nowhere and you will not have an accurate understanding of your ecommerce store’s performance.  [tip] Use our complementary instant order checker for GA4 to check your property [/tip] How to track ecommerce conversions and revenue in GA4 After landing on your store, online shoppers interact with collections and products before adding items to their carts and going through the checkout process. These web interactions must be captured as events and linked with customers and marketing data in GA4 to get a complete picture of your business. We have looked at what data can be missing from your GA4 events and which enhanced ecommerce events you should track. But how can you get all these ecommerce events in GA4?  Google Tag Manager (GTM) has always been the most common tracking method for Universal Analytics, and the setup process can be carried over to GA4. However, for a lean team, the setup process can be quite time-consuming and complex, having to create a Data Layer In Shopify, and then for each event, you must create: Firing Triggers in GTM  Data Layer Variables in GTM Ecommerce Tags in GTM Needless to say, there are quite a few maintenance pitfalls if you're going down this route. Setup is just the beginning. To make matters worse, Shopify is removing GTM from the checkout for Shopify Plus stores (standard Shopify stores never had access). So even if you take the time to add all your own events to tracking visitors before they make a purchase, you’ll no longer be able to track checkout steps (add-to-cart, etc) with GTM. If you want to save time and money while still having confidence in the accuracy of your GA4 data, Littledata is the perfect solution for you. Our proven app is used by over 1500+ brands and can help you track your ecommerce conversions with ease, giving you the reliable data you need to make informed decisions about your business. Littledata’s data layer uses a unique combination of client-side and server-side tracking to ensure accurate, complete ecommerce data in GA4 and any connected data warehouse or reporting destination. Littledata captures complete ecommerce data automatically in GA4 for Shopify and BigCommerce stores. We can break down those events into seven general categories: Marketing channels Browsing behavior Checkout steps Conversions Revenue Recurring orders Upsells Of course, each reporting category has useful data, but brands that really want to scale link it all together to look at revenue and LTV by channel, splitting out first-time purchases from repeat purchases or recurring orders (subscription analytics). As I mentioned earlier, Acquisition reports are some of the most valuable sets of data GA4 offers. They show which of your team’s marketing efforts bring the most results, from traffic through engagement and conversions. The difference between having accurate or questionable ROI data in these reports rests on how the purchase event is tracked. It is useful to have the engagement metrics grouped by channel, but the difference between having accurate or questionable ROI data in these reports rests on how the purchase event is tracked.  Get started with Littledata today so you will have the data you need to scale faster the smart way. We recommend tracking in UA and GA4 “in parallel” as soon as possible.

There have been rumors circulating about the latest version of Shopify checkout not supporting Google Tag Manager (GTM). Is Shopify cutting off support for GTM on the checkout completely? This might be the biggest announcement from Shopify this year, but also the most overlooked. We have been working with Shopify tracking since the beginning at Littledata and have followed these updates closely. So let me unpack what is and is not changing for GTM tracking on Shopify and Shopify Plus. What is Google Tag Manager? Many Shopify stores use Google Tag Manager (GTM) to deploy marketing ‘tags’ across their web pages, without the need to directly edit the store theme.The  free tool developed by Google has shot to popularity ahead of paid rivals such as Tealium. GTM makes it easy for these stores to track pageviews and on-site events in Google Analytics, Facebook Ads and other analytics and marketing platforms, but capturing checkout steps and transactions (orders) is more difficult. Until recently, Shopify Plus stores had the ability to also add GTM to the checkout pages, by adding the GTM container to the theme checkout.liquid file. This allowed tracking of checkout steps to power, for example, abandoned checkout retargeting via email or Facebook Ads. Even though there are automated solutions that track checkout steps accurately and securely without the need for GTM, some merchants and agencies still tried to do this manually via GTM. When will GTM be blocked on the Shopify checkout? Starting in November 2022, Shopify has been gradually limiting Google Tag Manager in the checkout for Shopify Plus stores. Shopify has been rolling out a new version of its checkout to Plus stores which will remove the ability to add scripts via checkout.liquid. The checkout.liquid file will still be present but be ignored. (UPDATE: Shopify has announced the official end date for checkout.liquid as August 13, 2024). Shopify will no longer be allowing Google Tag Manager in the checkout Stores will get the ability to modify aspects of the checkout experience from within Shopify admin, but not the ability to add GTM to the checkout. This is not a temporary measure; it’s a long term solution to increase security in the checkout. You can still track completed orders on the order status (thank you) page via the Checkout Order Status Script section, but this client-side tracking is increasingly unreliable. Why didn’t merchants get a headsup? To be fair to Shopify, they have flagged extra scripts on the checkout as a security risk for a few years. They have been trying to close the Additional Scripts loophole since 2020, and have added a browser console warning about third-party scripts being blocked on the checkout. Their long term solution is the Web Pixels API, to allow tracking of checkout pages without access to the checkout pages - but this solution isn’t quite ready, and doesn’t include key steps of the checkout journey. How to replace GTM on the Shopify checkout If you run GTM on a Shopify Plus checkout you need to find an alternative to tracking the checkout steps. And you need to do so ASAP. Although GTM may still be running in your store, it won’t be for much longer. You have only two options I’m aware of: Use Littledata’s end-to-end tracking, which tracks tracks Shopify checkout steps server-side and automatically sends those events to data destinations such as Google Analytics, Segment, Facebook Ads (via Conversions API). This has the added advantage of tracking pre-checkout events server-side, which improves both page performance and data accuracy. Use an app that integrates with Shopify’s Web Pixel API. Apps like Elevar have taken this route, even though Web Pixel is still quite limited. Neither solution will provide quite the same level of customization as Google Tag Manager, but then it comes without the risks either. Can your store really take the risk of interrupting the checkout journey for the sake of some minor marketing optimization? Littledata tracks Shopify checkout steps server-side, without the need for GTM Why is Shopify restricting usage of GTM? GTM is loved by marketers for its ability to bypass developer blockers to get marketing tags live, but it is hated in equal measure by web security experts for the same ability to bypass security. With great deployment power should come great responsibility, but GTM allows a non-technical user to inject unknown JavaScript into all web pages on a site with minimal scrutiny. On pre-checkout pages of a store the worst impact is container bloat - multiple tracking tags from different vendors slow down the user experience for customers. The antidote to bloated GTM containers is to push most of the tracking server-side. Server-side tracking allows for faster page loads while improving data accuracy. But adding GTM to the checkout pages presents a much greater risk. As well as potentially interrupting a business-critical path to payment, rogue scripts loaded from GTM can scrape credit card details from the page and facilitate credit card fraud. The final straw for Shopify seems to have come in August when Shopify’s checkout was out of action globally for the best part of a day due to a conflict with GTM. I can’t believe more people aren’t talking about the @shopify checkout issue. 12 hours and massive stores are still affected with no announcement from shopifyHere’s a fix, if your store is affected pic.twitter.com/rkvr72AlBP— Matt Schroeder | 3PL Operator 📦 (@SchroedsBiz) August 31, 2022 With over $500M a day of GMV processed through Shopify checkout in Q3 alone, that is just too big an operational risk for Shopify to bear. Is GTM safe on the rest of my Shopify store? Yes, I can’t see why or how Shopify would restrict third-party scripts -- including GTM -- on the pre-checkout storefront. Shopify allows stores to add any functionality to the storefront as they want, even if that does make the pages load more slowly. That said, two advances in web tracking technology may make GTM redundant for your store: Enhanced Measurement in Google Analytics. This allows stores to track clicks, outbound links, video engagement and page scrolling without adding any code to the storefront. These were all events that required GTM to trigger previously. And it’s completely compatible with Littledata’s Google Analytics 4 connection. Server-side tracking across the customer journey. Browser-based tracking via GTM is increasingly unreliable as cookies and tracking scripts get blocked. Although Google Tag manager also supports server-side containers, the setup can be fiddly and requires you to run your own server infrastructure on Google Cloud. Littledata’s out-the-box server side solution provides all the benefits of server-side with none of the maintenance. So even if you’re quite happy with GTM - and not on Shopify Plus - I recommend you have a think about whether you really need GTM, or could find a lower maintenance solution. [subscribe]