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Harnessing Revenue Tracking for Custom Events in GA4 with GTM
I need some help figuring out if I can track revenue for a custom GA4 event that I’ve set up to be fired through GTM. I’ve tried pulling the revenue value through a custom parameter, but I’m just not sure it’s working right.
I’ve also played around with wrapping an ecommerce object and even checked the “Send eCommerce data” box, thinking that would push the eCommerce data from the datalayer to GA4. But, nada. It doesn’t show anything in the debugger.
Google’s got these docs that say to use “purchase” or recommended events to track revenue, but the thing I really want to know is can a custom GA4 event carry a legit revenue in it?
I even tried adding an “ecommerce” object to the dataLayer and came up empty. With this event firing from GTM, it’s a bit of a puzzle to get values over to GA4. Does anyone know how to make this work?
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2 Replies
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Sure, let me explain it as simply as possible.
When you are using Google Tag Manager and you see a value in the data layer that you want to use (like sale price, for example), you can manually link this to your tag.
Just imagine that you’re processing a purchase. You’d first click on the custom event for the purchase. In the data layer, you’ll see multiple fields with specific information on the transaction, including the price of the purchase under a custom value.
The next step is to create a new data layer variable in Google Tag Manager using the same name as the custom value from your data layer. Once you’ve created this, you can then manually include this value in your tag.
Does that make sense now? Even though it’s a multi-step process, it’s definitely doable and can allow you to use a custom GA4 event to carry revenue information.
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Yes, a custom GA4 event can technically carry revenue data, but there are important nuances to keep in mind. GA4 is a bit less straightforward when it comes to eCommerce tracking compared to Universal Analytics. While you can send custom parameters with any event in GA4, they won’t automatically be treated as conversions or include monetary value unless they’re specifically set up with the conversion tracking options or the built-in ecommerce tracking of GA4.
In most cases, it’s recommended to use the built-in ecommerce system which includes the “purchase” event that the documentation mentions. Those recommended events have the advantage of being recognized and understood more smoothly by GA4’s system, including their conversion tracking and audience systems. Additionally, it’s important to ensure that the ecommerce data are sent correctly to the dataLayer from your site, that GTM then picks up and sends to GA4. The ecommerce data won’t appear in GA4 unless they’re also properly pulled into GTM from the dataLayer. If there’s an error in that chain of data transmission, it won’t show up correctly in GA4.
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