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  • Troubleshooting Issues with GA4 Ecommerce Tracking: Missing Transaction IDs and Adding Payment Types to Purchase Events

    Posted by Gabriel on 17 January 2023 at 1:05 am

    Hey, y’all! So, I’ve hit a few bumps while working with my GA4 ecommerce setup (I’m using the tag manager). I’ve been trying to sort this out by working up an exploration/Freeform report, checking sales against transaction IDs and revenue made from these sales. But it’s not going exactly as planned…

    Oddly enough, I’m seeing purchases that have no transaction IDs linked, and others where one transaction ID is linked to multiple purchases – which, as far as I know, shouldn’t be the case.

    Onto the next thing – I’ve been trying to review some custom parameters. I found the Event add_payment has the ‘payment_type’ parameter so I’m considering adding it to the purchase event, but there’s no info on whether that’s even possible, or how I could see if it’s part of the data layer values when the purchase event happens. Do you know any legit tutorials on data layer values, specifically for a single page web app?

    I’d really appreciate the help! Have a look at my report (link provided) – maybe someone can point me in the right direction. Thanks so much!

    Best, Sam

    Here are my purchases by transaction ID (showing purchases with NO ID and multiple purchases for individual IDs)

    EDIT: I’ve added another image. It shows how the funnel steps are filled with actions, but all transaction IDs & revenues seem duplicated. This, along with my site being a single page application, makes me think that events might be firing multiple times, but not connecting to recorded transactions. Does this make sense to anyone else?

    Emily replied 1 year, 5 months ago 3 Members · 2 Replies
  • 2 Replies
  • George

    Member
    2 February 2023 at 12:03 pm

    It seems like you’re having issues with your ecommerce setup on GA4, specifically with generating and interpreting reports based on transaction IDs and revenue. Apart from that, it looks like there are some purchases with no transaction IDs linked and some instances where one transaction ID is associated with multiple purchases, which is not suppose to happen ordinarily. Also, you’re trying to review some custom parameters and thinking about adding a ‘payment_type’ to the purchase event. You’re wondering if it’s possible and how you can check if it’s part of the data layer values when the purchase event occurs and looking for tutorials on data layers. In terms of your funnel steps and transaction IDs, you suspect that your events might be triggering more times than they should, which could be contributing to the issues you’re experiencing.

  • Emily

    Member
    5 April 2023 at 9:34 am

    There could be a number of issues causing these problems. Firstly, transaction ID’s not being recorded could be due to a break in the tracking or potentially an issue with the way your Ecommerce data is being sent to Google Analytics.

    One Transaction ID linking to multiple purchases could be due to a technical glitch or could be the result of the way your website handles transactions – particularly if ID’s are not cleared and reissued correctly for each new purchase.

    As for adding ‘payment type’ as a custom parameter to the purchase event, it should be possible as long as it’s included in your website’s data layer when the purchase action occurs. However, you would need to do some custom scripting to handle this in your tag manager.

    In regards to your second image, it’s hard to make a precise conclusion without direct access to your data. However, seeing all transaction IDs and revenues showing as duplicated could definitely suggest that events are firing multiple times. If transaction and revenue data is duplicated, that suggests that your tags could be firing twice.

    You could verify this by checking your tags’ firing status in Google Tag Manager’s preview mode. If you see the same tag firing twice, then that could be the issue. It might be worth looking into some of the Google Tag Manager forums, or indeed, Google’s own tutorials for more information on data layers in single-page web applications.

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