The GA4 & Server Side Tracking Body Lotion

This is an all in one package that will give you:

• A full set up of Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and marketing tracking
  So that you are properly tracking all events that can possibly be tracked. If set up via Shopify, there are seven default events that are already tracked (such as add to cart, initiate checkout and purchase). Set up this way you get ten events and all data variables included in those events.
  Inclusions:
  
• Creating or updating Google Tag Manager (GTM)
  
• Link GA4 to GTM
  
• Create Conversion Linker for Google Ads
• Create server and standard GTM container
• Add header code to Shopify theme.liquid file
  
• Set up all standard ecommerce tracking events
• Set up all new data variables
• Set up email sign up tracking
• Create look up tables to place the Google Ads Conversion labels based on the event that fires
• Create custom definitions for events in GA4
  
• Add code snippets to Shopify theme and Order Status Page settings
  
• Set up events in GA4
  
  
• A full set up of server side tracking
  Server side tracking when using most tools such as TripleWhale cost between $200 and $400 AUD a month, which, let's be honest - is just not affordable for most small business. It means accurate tracking alone could be costing you nearly $5,000 a year. We use a tool that costs just $30 a month, just 7% of the pretty exorbitant cost of other options! 
  Inclusions:
• Update domain registrar to create new subdomain
• Update GTM server container
• Complete multiple tests across 1-7 days to ensure tracking is working as expected and Shopify sales match GA4 to 90-95%+ and are being attributed to the correct marketing channel

What's the benefit of this type of GA4 tracking set up?

• Most importantly with this set up, you can actually have server side tracking. Without it, you cannot. That's the biggest benefit above all else! It means that more sales are getting attributed to marketing which can feed back into Google Ads and that means it has more data, and you can see the true ROAS of your marketing activities
• You get three more events than you're able to get with the Shopify standard set up
• We include data variables that aren't in the standard tracking so you can run reports on your product data from within Looker or GA4 
• We ensure everything is connected to Google Tag Manager so you have the freedom in the future to add more tracking as new functionality is released from Google 
  
  

What's the benefit of this server side tracking set up?
Remember when Facebook started removing audiences and iOS14 came out? The more privacy settings people have on their devices, the less data is able to be tracked by third party tools like Google Analytics. What this means in practice, is that the sales you see in Google Analytics NEVER match Shopify...which is really annoying because GA4 is much better at tracking exactly which channel was responsible for the sale so you can better invest your marketing dollars. 

What server side tracking does, is it allows you to send data from your Shopify store, to a web server that you own (that sits on a subdomain such as reporting.yourwebsite.com.au). As a result, the browser understands it as first party data and allows the tracking. Here's how it works:

We give you full documentation on what we've done, so if anyone needs to look at it in the future, you know exactly what's been set up and how :-D