What could be causing the absence of the price dimension on my scatterplot in Google Analytics 4 Explorer – Custom Dimension or data type issue?

Google Analytics 4

What could be causing the absence of the price dimension on my scatterplot in Google Analytics 4 Explorer – Custom Dimension or data type issue?

Posted by Oscar on 27 April 2022 at 12:08 pm
Hey there! I really could use a bit of help with something I’ve run into during work. I noticed that I couldn’t use the “Explore” feature for a scatterplot in a client’s GA4 Explorer. The thing is, I was trying to draw a simple scatterplot: view_item on the X-axis, price on the Y-axis, and each point represented by item_name. The aim was to check for any relationship between the price and the items viewed. However, once the report gets constructed, the price dimension just shows as (not set).

So, here’s what I’m suspecting might be the cause:
- Could it be that someone created a Custom Dimension named “price”? It’s the same name and spelt the same way as the price parameter within the items. Just wondering if it could be overwriting the ecommerce data.
- Or maybe, could it be because the price value sent with the ecommerce.view_item data layer is not in string format, but as a number?
Here is the current structure of the dataLayer.push() command for the view_item event:
```
{
  "pageName": "xxx",
  "pageType": "product",
  "ecommerce": {
    "items": [
      {
        "item_name": "xxx",
        "price": 39992,
        "item_brand": "xxx",
        "item_category": "xxx",
        "item_category_2": "xxx",
        "currency": "USD",
        "item_stock_status": "In stock",
        "item_sale_product": "No",
        "item_reviews_count": "0",
        "item_reviews_score": "0",
        "plugin": "plugin"
      }
    ]
  },
  "event": "view_item"
}
```
Does this ring a bell? Or would you need more information?

I’ve tried to get around it by archiving the custom dimension that was created, and now just waiting for the data to come in. But in the meantime, I’m looking for insights on why this could be happening. Any thoughts?
Logan replied 1 year, 4 months ago 3 Members · 2 Replies
2 Replies

Taylor

Member
25 June 2022 at 10:21 am

It’s possible that a custom dimension named “price” is causing interference with your ecommerce data. Since you’ve already archived it, let’s see if it solves the issue. The number format for the price should be alright, as GA4 accepts it. We’ll know more soon after the fresh data starts coming in!
Logan

Member
14 January 2023 at 12:09 pm

I believe your suspicions might be correct. It could indeed be due to the presence of the Custom Dimension named “price”. If it’s spelled and named identically to your price parameter within your ecommerce data, it can lead to confusion and conflicts which might be causing the problem. By archiving the custom dimension, you’ve made a good step towards troubleshooting the issue. On the other hand, the data type of the price value wouldn’t typically affect the plotting in GA4 Explorer. Google Analytics 4 is designed to understand numeric values, so it should interpret this properly as long as it’s named consistently. If the issue persists after the data has had sufficient time to populate after archiving the conflicting Custom Dimension, you may need to dive deeper into the GA4 config or your implementation to find the culprit.

What could be causing the absence of the price dimension on my scatterplot in Google Analytics 4 Explorer – Custom Dimension or data type issue?

Taylor

Logan