Measuring Ecommerce with Google Analytics

Google Analytics provides powerful tools for measuring the performance of your ecommerce website. By implementing ecommerce tracking, you can gain valuable insights into your sales funnel, customer behavior, and revenue generation. Below, we'll explore how to effectively measure ecommerce performance using Google Analytics.

Set Up Google Analytics 4

Before you can measure ecommerce performance, you need to create a Google Analytics 4 account and property.

Then you need to create a web data stream for your website. This will allow you to collect data from your site and track user interactions.

After you've set up your web data stream, you will have a Google Tag Manager code snippet. Go to Admin -> Settings -> Ecommerce -> Tracking, enable Enable Google Tag Manager field and paste your Google Tag Manager code snippet in the Google Tag Manager code field.

Tracked Events

The following GA4 ecommerce events are tracked automatically:

Server-Side Events

These events are pushed from the server when pages load:

Event	Trigger	Data
view_item_list	Product listing page (category, search results)	item_list_id, item_list_name, items with item_id, item_name, price, item_brand, item_category
view_item	Product detail page	currency, value, item details
view_category	Category page	categoryId, categoryName, productCount
view_cart	Cart page	currency, value, all cart items with quantities and variants
begin_checkout	Checkout page	currency, value, coupon, cart items
purchase	Order success page	transaction_id, currency, value, tax, shipping, coupon, ordered items
refund	Order refund processed	transaction_id, currency, value, tax, shipping, coupon, refunded items
search	Search results page	search_term, items
sign_up	After customer registration	method (email)

Client-Side Events

These events fire via JavaScript when users interact with the site:

Event	Trigger	Data
add_to_cart	Click add-to-cart button	currency, value, item with item_id, item_name, price, quantity, item_brand, categories
remove_from_cart	Remove item from cart	currency, value, item details
select_item	Click on a product link	item_list_id, item_list_name, item with index
add_to_wishlist	Add product to wishlist	currency, value, item details
remove_from_wishlist	Remove product from wishlist	currency, value, item details
add_to_compare	Add product to compare list	currency, value, item details
remove_from_compare	Remove product from compare	currency, value, item details
view_promotion	Promotion banner visible	promotion_id, promotion_name, creative_name, creative_slot, location_id, items
select_promotion	Click on a promotion banner	promotion_id, promotion_name, creative_name, creative_slot, location_id
search	AJAX quick search or search form submit	search_term, result_count
scroll	User scrolls 25%, 50%, 75%, 90% of page	percent_scrolled
user_engagement	User on page for 10s, 30s, 60s, 2m, 3m	engagement_time_msec

Item Data Structure

Each item in the events contains:

Field	Description
item_id	Product SKU or ID
item_name	Product name
price	Product price
quantity	Quantity (when applicable)
item_brand	Brand name
item_category	Primary category
item_category2, item_category3, ...	Additional categories
item_variant	Variant attributes (cart items only)

See Your Ecommerce Data

After 24 hours, your ecommerce data will be available in your Google Analytics account. You can view your ecommerce data by reading the Ecommerce purchases report.

Debugging

Google Analytics provides a debug mode to help you verify that your ecommerce tracking is working correctly.

You can add , { debug_mode: true } after your gtag('config', 'G-XXXXXXXXXXX'); code snippet to enable debug mode.

gtag('config', 'TAG_ID', { debug_mode: true });

Once you've enabled debug mode, you can use the DebugView by following Google's instructions.