ADDRESSING TRANSACTION AND REVENUE MEASUREMENT ISSUES WITH GA4

Therefore, today we want to talk about an important issue that can affect the interpretation of your Google Analytics 4 metrics, and that is that recently, we have observed some discrepancies in the count of transactions and revenue in GA4.

What is the problem?

Discrepancies can arise for a variety of reasons, from configuration issues with payment gateways to changes in privacy regulations.

• Privacy regulation: One of the main challenges we are currently facing is adapting to the new cookie policies, and that is that the implementation of GDPR and the fact of including a "reject" button, has led to a decrease in the acceptance of tracking, which may affect the accuracy of the data. This means that we are not capturing the totality of traffic and transaction data as we did before.

• Analytics setup: It is very important to make sure that the analytics setup with the payment gateway is configured correctly. One of the key areas to pay attention to is the configuration of the "Thank you" page.  If the automatic redirection to this page after payment on the gateway is not set up correctly, there is a risk that the transaction will not register correctly in GA4. This may be due to the tracking event not firing, resulting in a lack of transaction data in GA4 reporting.

• Impact of Consent Mode: Consent Mode, a measure implemented by Google in response to new privacy regulations, may also affect the accuracy of data in GA4. By strictly enforcing Consent Mode, only a portion of actual traffic and transactions may be recorded if the user chooses not to accept cookies. Google Analytics 4 only receives anonymized data rather than individual user data, what it does automatically is model that data and give a prediction of what the user may have done on the website. We have, again, data that will help us make decisions, but not adjusted data in terms of transactions and revenue.

In search of solutions for our customers
 

• API connection for our hotel clients: To address these discrepancies and ensure the accuracy of transaction and revenue data, we have requested API connection to the booking engines. This will allow us to directly obtain data in an automated manner and accurately track sales in the project.

• Request revenue and transaction data on a weekly basis: We have established the need to receive data on a weekly basis, this frequency allows us to closely monitor the evolution of transactions and revenue and track perfect sales targets of projects. In addition, it is crucial to monitor email and phone contact events to better understand total sales, not only online sales are part of your online visibility results.
   

• Working with estimates: Using estimates and available data to evaluate markets, opportunities and overall website performance will allow us to continue with the overall project analysis and decision making.

• Test purchase: It is essential to do a test purchase in order to analyze if we lose the tracking of each payment platform and at what point in the process.

We would like to remind you that these discrepancies are not a GA4 error, but may be due to changes in cookie policies and other regulations. However, we understand the importance of having accurate transaction data to evaluate our performance against monthly sales targets, so we are committed to working with our clients hand in hand for seamless project tracking.

Remember that at Emexs we are here to help you solve any problem and ensure that you get valuable information to make the best decisions, don't hesitate to contact our team!