When you are using analytics to improve your site and trying different ecommerce optimization tactics, you may run into some errors. Who am I kidding? You’re definitely going to run into some errors and that’s okay as long a you know how to fix them. In this article, we are going to go through 5 common Google analytics errors and how to solve them.

#1. Custom Campaigns Not Being Tracked

You get all excited because you’ve made a custom campaign and you can’t wait to see the data, but then you notice that these campaigns are not being tracked.

You use a custom campaign to find out how referred traffic comes to your site so you can figure out which ways are the best ways to get people to come to your site. You can add parameters to your campaign URLs so analytics can identify where your visitors come from.

While there are multiple reasons a custom campaign might not be tracked, it is almost always because parameters have been added manually and done incorrectly. The easiest solution for this is to go back to the URL builder tool, build the URL and make sure that you have copied and pasted it exactly as it is. Ensuring that you have the correct URL input in the right places is a must or it will not be tracked.

#2. eCommerce Data Not Showing for a “View”

If you want to see specific data for visitor purchases on your website or application, you do this through the “eCommerce” function within Google Analytics. It can be used to track what people bought, how much they bought, how long it took them to buy and more.

You need to enable eCommerce and set up eCommerce Tracking for web and an associated “view” to refine your data, but you do not see any data.

You may have a snippet issue, but if your code snippet was working but activating eCommerce then you probably did not enable it correctly. Another problem could be that you were looking at the wrong view, if you have a lot of sites you are working with.

Before clicking on the reporting tab, make sure you have selected the right view or if that is not the problem, go to Analytics, property, view, eCommerce, toggle switch to on. You are also able to enable advanced eCommerce features from this place.

#3. eCommerce Data Does Not Match 3rd Party Cart Data

If you have a website with products or services for sale, but a 3rd party is taking care of your shopping cart, you may find this a little more confusing and it does complicate things in terms of your analytics. Make sure that your cross domain tracking is set up properly and that similar attributes of both services match.

It is not uncommon for the date and time settings to not match. While it is an easy error to fix, it can be problematic if it is left that way. Your main site and your shopping site should have the same data and times set up. If it appears it is set up properly, make sure to look at the time zones.

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