Transactions in Google Analytics

You’ll find transaction data under Conversions > Ecommerce. The Overview report will display the total number of transactions and average order value for any period you choose.

What data can you track with GA transactions?

There are two types of ecommerce tracking to be aware of: 1. Basic ecommerce tracking measures the result of each transaction on your confirmation or thank you page

2. Enhanced ecommerce tracking measures transactions across your entire website and generates advanced reports on shopper behavior throughout the sales funnel, such as product pageviews and abandoned shopping carts.

Google Analytics can track several key ecommerce dimensions:

• Transaction ID

• Affiliation

• Revenue

• Shipping fees

• Tax

• Item data

• Enhanced ecommerce

Transaction ID

A Transaction ID (also known as order ID) is assigned to unique purchases on your website.

Affiliation

The Affiliation dimension records the name of your online store (e.g. Acme Clothing).

Revenue

The Revenue dimension displays the total revenue generated for each transaction in your store, including fees like tax and shipping costs.

Shipping fees

The Shipping dimension lets you track the total shipping cost of each transaction.

Tax

You can separate the tax value from any transaction using the Tax dimension.

Item data

You can set up GA to track item data in addition to transaction data. Dimensions include the product name (Name), unique item code or stock-keeping unit (SKU), product category (Category), per-unit price (Price), and the number of items sold (Quantity).

Enhanced ecommerce

If you’re using enhanced ecommerce, you can add additional schema to generate advanced and custom ecommerce reports. Enhanced dimensions include coupon codes (Coupon), promotional banners (Creative), product description (Detail), and refunds (Refund).

Transactions in GA4

Since October 2020, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the default version for all new analytics accounts, replacing Universal Analytics (UA). You can continue using UA or migrate to GA4.

GA4 uses the same ‘transaction_ID’ parameter to track unique purchases and refunds on ecommerce sites and is backward-compatible with UA ecommerce schema (see below).

To view transaction data in GA4, look under the ‘LIFE CYCLE’ section and select Monetization > Ecommerce purchases:

The 'Insights' feature will help you access quick transaction reports in GA4, such as your top products by revenue, and revenue by devices.

How to track transactions in Google Analytics

Step 1: Enable ecommerce tracking

Sign in to your Google Analytics account, click 'Admin' and then 'Ecommerce Settings' in the View column.

Click to toggle to 'Enable Ecommerce'. You can also click 'Enable Enhanced Ecommerce Reporting' for more advanced reports.

Step 2: Add ecommerce schema to your website

In addition to the standard Google Analytics tracking code, you’ll need a developer to add additional ecommerce schema markup to your site.

• For standard ecommerce data tracking, modify your analytics.js or gtag.js to file to send transaction and item data to Google Analytics from your order confirmation or thank you page.

• For enhanced ecommerce data tracking, modify your analytics.js or gtag.js file to send combined transaction and behavior data from every page of your website.

You can also add ecommerce code snippets using Google Tag Manager (GTM); if you have upgraded to GA4, you can still use the old ecommerce schema or follow these GA4-specific instructions for GTM setup.

3 easy ways to increase transactions on your website

Now you know how to set up and view transaction data in Google Analytics (and that it may not be 100% correct at all times), you can view reports on sales you already have.

But how can you generate more transactions?

Enter: Hotjar, to help you go beyond Google Analytics to understand how visitors are experiencing your website—and why they’re not converting into paying customers.

Here are three easy ways to increase transactions on your ecommerce site using Hotjar’s behavior analytics tools.

1. Spot and fix website bugs

One of the easiest ways to improve your website is to remove the bugs and errors holding potential customers back from completing their purchases.

Start by identifying the pages on your ecommerce site with the steepest drop-off in users (pages with a high exit rate in GA), then set up and watch session recordings on these problem pages to see where real users got stuck.

2. Check if your CTAs are effective

A CTA (call to action) is an element, like a button or link, designed to get website users' attention and drive an action (most likely a click). If you’re trying to increase transactions on your ecommerce site, you need to make sure that key CTAs like 'Shop Now', 'Add to Cart', or 'Checkout' are getting clicks.

Set up and view heatmaps to get a quick visual overview of how many clicks (and taps) your CTAs attract. Once you have the data to confirm if your CTAs are being seen or ignored, you can optimize the page to improve your ecommerce conversion rate.

3. Ask customers why they chose you

Another effective way to drive more transactions is to understand why your existing customers choose you over the competition. With this insight, you can do a better job of convincing undecided shoppers to make a purchase.

Set up an ecommerce post-purchase survey on your thank-you page and ask open-ended questions to your customers. A question like “What almost stopped you from completing your purchase?” will alert you to blockers that might be holding back other users from clicking 'Buy Now'.