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Discrepancy between Google Analytics purchase count and actual number of purchasers
So here’s what I’ve been up to: I use the GA4 measurement protocol to kick up a purchase event from my backend, purely because it’s a no-go logging the event from my mobile app. When I mosey on over to the ‘Event’ tab in my Google Analytics console, it tells me we’ve got 15 users making a purchase in the last month. You can have a gander at what I mean here.
Next up, I go to create a funnel exploration and keep things simple with a one-step set-up just to make sure the purchase count stacks up. Have a look at my step settings here.
So I compare apples to apples and check out the results for the exact same date range. But get this, I only get 5 users making a purchase. I was waiting for it to clock in at 15 users.
Here’s a look at the json payload I used to create the purchase with GA4 measurement protocol.
{"app_instance_id":"d87a8f85123e6b961f916f33f4043e7c","user_id":"1","timestamp_micros":"1667707452423000","non_personalized_ads":false,"user_properties":{"customer_type":{"value":"regular"}},"events":[{"name":"purchase","params":{"items":[{"item_name":"import/china/sea","item_category":"lcl","price":200000,"currency":"IDR","item_category2":"checkout"},{"item_name":"import/china/air","item_category":"air","price":400000,"currency":"IDR","item_category2":"checkout"}],"coupon":"JAKARTA2025","currency":"IDR","transaction_id":"INC1621","value":600000}}]}
So what do you reckon? Where did I hit a snag?
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2 Replies
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It’s like this bud, your funnel’s got a bunch of users split into team Android and team iOS, right? But when you’re sending your event through the measurement protocol, you’re not telling it which team the event belongs to.
So there’s not just a chance that your exploration data and reporting data are playing two different games. There’s also a chance that their freshness is a little out of whack, too. Give this a looksie for a bit more info: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/12233314#data-processing.
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The discrepancy in the numbers might be because you’re looking at two different metrics in Google Analytics. While the ‘Events’ tab shows the total number of unique users who triggered the specific event (in this case, a purchase), the funnel analysis might be showing only those users who completed the entire user flow you’ve defined for your app or site. If any part of this flow wasn’t tracked (or didn’t occur), these users aren’t reported in the funnel analysis. It’s also possible that some users disabled cookies, making it impossible for Google Analytics to identify them as unique users, or used a different device, leading to the same issue. Finally, I would suggest checking your purchase event timestamps. Google Analytics might filter out purchases if the timestamps are out of sync.
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