You can set up ecommerce events to collect information about the shopping
behavior of your users. The events enable you to quantify your most popular
products and see the influence of promotions and product placement on revenue.
This article describes each ecommerce event and when to set up the event. For
a step-by-step example of how to set up an ecommerce event, see
Set up a purchase event
.
Before you begin
Recommendations
- Enable debug mode
so you can see events in realtime and more easily troubleshoot issues
- Review
the custom dimension and metric limits
when sending custom parameters with ecommerce events
- Set
currency
when sending
value
(revenue) data to ensure revenue metrics are calculated correctly
- Set each ecommerce parameter you have data for, regardless of whether the parameter is optional
- Use
the sample ecommerce website
to see an example of how to tag your website
Implementation
A typical ecommerce implementation measures any of the following actions:
At the heart of these actions are the products and services you sell. You can
represent products and services as an array of items that can be added to
ecommerce events. You can include up to 27 custom parameters in the items array,
in addition to the prescribed parameters.
The following example demonstrates how to create the collection of
items
that
are referenced throughout this guide. The
items
array can include up to 200
elements.
Select an item from a list
When a user is presented with a list of results, send a
view_item_list
event including an
items
array parameter containing the displayed items. For details on the parameters to send, see the
Events reference
.
Once a user selects an item from the list, send the
select_item
event with the selected item in an
items
array parameter. For details on the parameters to send, see the
Events reference
.
View item details
To measure how many times item details are viewed, send a
view_item
event whenever a user views an item’s details screen. For details on the parameters to send, see the
Events reference
.
Measure an item being added to a shopping cart by sending an
add_to_cart
event with the relevant items in an
items
array. For details on the parameters to send, see the
Events reference
.
You can also measure when an item is added to a wishlist by sending an
add_to_wishlist
event with the relevant items in an
items
array. For details on the parameters to send, see the
Events reference
.
When a user subsequently views the cart, send the
view_cart
event with all items in the cart. For details on the parameters to send, see the
Events reference
.
To measure when a user removes an item from a cart, send the
remove_from_cart
event. For details on the parameters to send, see the
Events reference
.
Initiate the checkout process
Measure the first step in a checkout process by sending a
begin_checkout
event
with one or more items defined with the relevant fields. A coupon can also be
added at this stage to the entire order by adding it to the event or applied to
a particular item by adding it to specific elements in the
items
array. For
details on the parameters to send, see the
Events reference
.
When a user proceeds to the next step in the checkout process and adds shipping
information, send an
add_shipping_info
event. Use the parameter
shipping_tier
to specify the user’s delivery option, such as "Ground", "Air",
or "Next-day". For details on the parameters to send, see the
Events reference
.
Send the
add_payment_info
event when a user submits their payment information.
If applicable, include
payment_type
with this event for the chosen method of
payment. For details on the parameters to send, see the
Events reference
.
Make a purchase or issue a refund
Measure a purchase by sending a
purchase
event with one or more items defined with the relevant fields. For details on the parameters to send, see the
Events reference
.
Measure refunds by sending a
refund
event with the relevant
transaction_id
specified and one or more items defined with
item_id
and
quantity
. We
recommend that you include item information in your
refund
event to see
item-level refund metrics in Analytics.
For details on the parameters to send, see the
Events reference
.
Ecommerce includes support for measuring impressions and clicks of internal promotions, such as banners displayed to promote a sale.
Promotion impressions are typically measured with the initial screen view by sending the
view_promotion
event with an items parameter to specify the promoted item. For details on the parameters to send, see the
Events reference
.
To indicate a user clicked on a promotion, send a
select_promotion
event with that item as an item parameter. For details on the parameters to send, see the
Events reference
.