Q: How do we audit e-Commerce functionality in Google Analytics to make sure it’s working correctly?
First, it’s important to note that when looking at your e-Commerce reports you’ll see two different sets of data:
- Transaction Information: This includes the transaction ID and the amount of revenue it generated, along with tax and shipping.
- Product Array Information: This includes the product names, quantities and costs that make up a transaction.
In order to understand if e-Commerce is properly configured on your website, you’ll want to create a test transaction, making sure to “purchase” multiple products on your website. Do so by utilizing utm parameters, setting a test source, medium and campaign. This will make the data is easy to find within the Google Analytics interface.
Once complete, compare this test purchase with your back-end system. Make sure that the correct products are showing up in Google Analytics, along with the correct quantities and prices. Although, for a variety of reasons, you will most likely never see a perfect 1-to-1 between the two reports, you want to make sure that both totals come within 3%-5% of each other.
