If you have a Shopify store and use Google Ads, you might run into problems with tracking your purchases. You could be seeing no transactions at all or numbers that don’t match your actual sales.
Fixing these issues is important for making the most of your advertising.
Let’s go through the entire process of finding and solving common problems with purchase conversion tracking in Google Ads.
Step-By-Step Troubleshooting Guide
Before diving into troubleshooting, it’s essential to understand what you might be facing. You could be experiencing:
- Zero transactions. No recorded conversions in your Google Ads account.
- Inaccurate transactions. The number of conversions reported is significantly different from what you see in your Shopify store.
Below, we’ll learn how to tackle both these issues.
Step 1: Access Your Google Ads Account
Start by logging into your Google Ads account. Navigate to the Goals area and select Summary. Here, you can review your conversion actions, including purchases, add to cart, and checkout.
Step 2: Check Conversion Action Status
In the Conversion Actions section, look at the Status column. If it shows “Inactive” or “No Recent Conversions,” this indicates that your conversion tracking may not be set up correctly.
An active status should appear green, indicating that conversions are being recorded.
Step 3: Verify Conversion Tag in Shopify
Next, head over to your Shopify store:
- Go to Settings and select Checkout.
2. Scroll down to the Order Status section and check the Additional Scripts area. Ensure that your Google Ads purchase conversion snippet is correctly added here.
3. If you don’t see the conversion tag, you may need to add it manually or check if it’s been added under Customer Events as a custom pixel.
Step 4: Use Google Tag Manager
If you’re using Google Tag Manager (GTM) to manage your tracking scripts, ensure that your conversion tracking is set up correctly.
GTM simplifies the process of adding and managing various tracking codes without needing to modify your website’s code directly.
Here’s how to verify that your conversion script is functioning properly:
1. Access Google Tag Manager
Start by logging into your Google Tag Manager account. Once you’re in, you’ll see a dashboard that displays all the tags, triggers, and variables associated with your store.
2. Check the Top-Level Tag
Locate the top-level tag for your Shopify store. This tag is typically where your main tracking code is implemented.
Click on the tag to open its settings. Now, ensure that the tag type is set to Google Ads Conversion Tracking. This is crucial for tracking conversions accurately.
We also suggest looking at the triggers associated with this tag. The tag should be set to fire on the appropriate pages, particularly during the checkout process.
3. Find Your Conversion Script
If you need to locate the specific script for setting up your conversion actions, click inside the conversion action that is labeled “Website”. Make sure it’s not a conversion action being used by an app.
Scroll down to find the Tag Setup section. Here, you can see the details for installing the conversion tag yourself.
If you haven’t added the Google tag across all HTML pages, you can do so now. If you previously set it up using Google Analytics 4, you can confirm that it has been added correctly.
4. Test the Conversion Script
To confirm that the conversion script is firing correctly, you can use the Preview Mode in Google Tag Manager:
- Click on the “Preview” button in the top right corner of the GTM dashboard. This will open a new tab where you can enter your Shopify store’s URL to test the tags.
- Go through the checkout process on your store. Add an item to your cart and proceed to the checkout page.
- In the GTM preview pane, you will see a list of tags that have fired on the page. Look for your Google Ads conversion tag. If it shows as “Fired,” that means the tag is working correctly.
5. Troubleshoot if Necessary
If the conversion tag does not fire during the checkout process, you may need to adjust your triggers:
- Go back to the tag settings and check the trigger conditions. Ensure that the trigger is set to fire on the correct URL or event (e.g., when a purchase is completed).
- If you’re using a data layer to pass information about the transaction (like order value or product details), ensure that these variables are correctly set up in GTM and are being populated during the checkout process.
6. Install the Conversion Tag Manually (If Needed)
If you are not using Google Tag Manager and need to install the conversion tag manually, here’s how to do it:
1. Go to your Shopify admin and navigate to Online Store.
2. Click on the three dots and select Edit Code.
3. Open the theme.liquid file and insert the Google tag code between the opening and closing <head> tags.
7. Set Up Primary Conversion Actions
It’s important to have at least one primary conversion action that is being optimized within your Google Ads account. To ensure this:
1. Hover over your conversion actions to see which ones are set as primary or secondary.
2. If you have multiple primary conversions, consider consolidating them unless you have a separate checkout process that requires distinct tracking.
Once you’ve verified that your conversion script is firing correctly and that your conversion actions are set up properly, make sure to save any changes in Google Tag Manager.
Step 5: Test Your Conversion Scripts
To ensure that your scripts are firing properly, you can use the Tag Assistant tool:
- Create a test coupon code for a 100% discount.
- Open Tag Assistant in a new tab and connect it to your website.
- Perform a test purchase using the coupon code to see if the conversion tag triggers correctly.
Step 6: Resolve Multiple Conversion Issues
If you’re seeing multiple purchase conversions that don’t match your Shopify sales, you may need to check your campaign settings:
1. Go to the Campaigns tab and modify your columns to include standard conversions and conversion values.
2. Check for duplicate conversion actions that may be causing inflated numbers.
Step 7: Analyze Conversion URLs
Another common issue that can lead to discrepancies is having different URLs for the same purchase action:
1. Click on the primary conversion action and navigate to the Web Pages section.
2. Look for any inconsistencies in the URLs being tracked. If you have multiple URLs firing for the same purchase, this can lead to inflated conversion data. There should only be one type of link at a time for all purchases.
This could be because of multiple scripts firing in your Shopify store. To fix the issue, go to your Shopify admin and navigate to Settings > Checkout. Scroll down to the Additional Scripts section. Check if there are multiple purchase conversion scripts added here.
Also, review the Customer Events section to see if any enhanced purchase conversion scripts are firing simultaneously.
Step 8: Monitor Repeat Rates
The repeat rate is a critical metric that indicates how often customers return to make purchases.
In your Google Ads account, go to the Conversion Goals section and select View All Conversion Actions. Enable the Repeat Rate column to see how many times conversions are being recorded for the same user.
A repeat rate significantly higher than 1.0 may indicate that the same purchase is being counted multiple times. Ideally, a repeat rate between 1.0 and 1.1 is acceptable, depending on your sales volume and conversion window settings.
