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Top 14 eCommerce Events to Track for Shopify stores
GA4

Top 14 eCommerce Events to Track for Shopify stores

By
4 min read
March 27, 2023

Out of the total websites in the world, more than 40% are built using WordPress. That’s a huge number for any CMS platform and hence, there is a great chance that your website is built using WordPress. Also, you probably use the WordPress Contact Form 7 plugin for your website's contact us form.

So tracking of WordPress contact form 7 is extremely important.

We will show two ways to track WordPress contact form 7

  • Traditional Google tag manager way that would take a lot of time.
  • and Tagmate way! ( No Code set up and fast way) 😲
Key Takeaways
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As a Shopify store owner, tracking user activity serves a multitude of purposes including website optimization and understanding the impact of digital marketing activities. But if you have a little experience working with tools like Google Analytics 4 (or Universal Analytics for that matter), you very well understand the fact that there are thousands of events you would want to track on your Shopify store.

However, tracking everything is neither possible nor necessary as long as you know the most crucial events that shouldn’t escape your radar. In this article, I have compiled the must-track e-commerce events that every Shopify owner must track.


Let’s get started:

1. Item’s (Product item) impression in the list

Now, look at the below screen of our sample Shopify store. Now imagine, if you get the report that tells you that users have seen items with name, id, and other useful information then you can retarget users or you can run a promotion or any other campaign on such focused data!

On this event tracking you should track below important information:

With the help of GA4’s Measure e-commerce event data layer, you can track all the above information but you might need the developer’s help.

2. When the user clicks on any item on the page

Once your user sees the list of items on your Shopify store,  there are great chances that the user select (click) on any product to see. Now, as a business owner, you must want this information:

  • Which of my products are clicked?
  • Which are my products generates user interest?

On this event tracking you should track below important information:

With the help of GA4’s Measure e-commerce event data layer, you can track all the above information but you might need the developer’s help.

3. Detail of View item/ Product

A detailed view of the product/item is highly important to track because from this event you have more surety that the user/customer has a clear interest in the product. The user Might have no decision to buy that product OR maybe he is exploring the product but the user might be converted, hence this event is a very important event for retargeting.

What is retargeting
A marketing strategy in which re-engage user who has seen products in your store but have not purchased.

Some more encouraging stats about retargeting 🥳

  • About 25% of online viewers enjoy seeing retargeted ads.
  • Retargeted website visitors are 43% more likely to convert.
  • A retargeted ad has a 10x higher click-through rate (CTR) than a typical display ad.
  • When compared to other placement strategies, retargeting produced the highest 1,046% increase in business name searches.
  • 49% of brands and 68% of marketing firms have a specific budget set aside for retargeting.

Sound’s interesting, right? Yes, but when to start to retarget your user? this is the main question.
One of the easiest and first data points (event) on your website is a detailed view of your product/brand/item (whatever you call it), see in below image of page of our sample e-commerce store.


The first step is to track a detailed view of the product/item, but how? and with what information?

On this event tracking you should track below important information:

4. When a user/visitor adds an item to the cart but does not purchase

Add to cart is a very important event and it must be tracked OR I can say it is mandatory to track this event on your e-commerce store! Add-to-cart / abandon cart retargeting is super effective! You must do retargeting campaign on add cart event. Let’s check the effectiveness:

  • Retargeting can reduce cart abandonment by 6.5% while increasing online sales by nearly 20%.
  • According to studies, the average cart abandonment rate across all industries will be 60% in 2023.
  • According to research, retargeting ads have a higher click-through rate of 0.7% than regular ads, which have a click-through rate of only 0.07%.

Why do customers abandon shopping carts?

In this section, we will go through the most common reasons for cart abandonment:

Cost of shipping/unexpected shipping cost

  • 61% of users/visitors are likely to cancel their purchase or go further to check out because free shipping is not offered.

Total cost/no discounts offered

  • 72% of US residents said that the cost of the item is expensive

Longer delivery times

  • Longer delivery times is one of the major reason for cart abandonment, according to a survey 32% of  people not going further after seeing long delivery time.

Too long/complex checkout process

  • A major reason for frustration and bad user experience is seen in the checkout process, asking for too much information and the whole process running in 2-3 screens/steps gives major frustration to the user.

Slow Website/Crash

  • A 2020 YOTTAA research will be conducted. The study's key finding was that 90% of users would leave a website if it took too long to load, with 57% opting to buy from a rival and 14% never visiting your e-commerce site again.

How to calculate abandoned carts rarely?

See the method, the number of add-to carts is very important to track, and based on that you can analyze further why people are not purchasing items.

There are many other reasons like payment method/term, security, and credibility of the website are the reason as well.


Let’s see add to cart event on the website, when the user clicks on the ‘add to cart’ button this event happens.

On this event tracking you should track below important information:

5. View cart: Page where the final decision of the purchase could be made

Users always tend to summarize what they are buying and make the final decision for the further go-ahead to checkout/purchase. They review items and compare and always check the final cost., whether they are eligible for free shipping or not, cart total is a very important point in making a buying decision.

Tracking the view cart is very important because it gives the Total value of the cart.

Let’s take a look at a sample in the view cart, it gives the total item and total cost of those items.

But from the view cart data, you can analyze data and develop useful insights for your business decisions.


We suggest collecting the below information along with the ‘view cart’ event on your Shopify store.

6. When the user removes from the cart: But why?

Tracking view cart is important but when you track the ‘remove cart’ event along with ‘view cart’ then it gives many useful insights!

The main reasons are removing from cart from most of the surveys are

  • Cost of the items.
  • Cost exceeds the budget.
  • The price of the item changed.
  • Wrong or unwanted items added to cart.
  • Item is not required.

You don't want that user to go for removal from the cart, right? few of the solutions like ‘save for later’ Or ‘add to Wishlist’ would work.

Let’s take a look at the sample removed from the cart as shown below image.

The event ‘Remove from cart’ was successfully executed as per shown below image.

We suggest collecting the below information along with the 'Select promotion ’ event on your Shopify store.

7. Work on perfect leads: Add to Wishlist

The wish list shows the ‘Desire’ of the customer. It shows interest in your product without purchase. You can know the future purchase pattern of the user, If you know products that are going to be sold in the future then you can heavily bet on such products. You would run remarketing and retargeting campaigns for such products, isn’t it?

The wish list is also an effective way to reduce the cart abandonment rate. It is a good mechanism to save the item for future reference and hence it increases user experience. A wish list can be said as ‘leads’.

Once you know the users who have put products into the wish list you can send a retargeting message as:

  • Send a reminder (but a friendly one, once in a while)
  • Apply discount on wish list items and send the message.
  • Send a 'stock is available' notification in case an item was added to the wish list for out-of-stock.

Here it is:

We suggest collecting the below information along with the ‘add to Wishlist’ event on your Shopify store.

8. Track Buying decision:  Begin checkout

When the user starts buying the item i.e. user clicks on the ‘Buy now’ button or ‘checkout’ button then the ‘begin checkout’ event is triggered.

Begin checkout is a clear indication of the intention of the user to purchase the item. Hence, tracking this event is extremely important. Many times, the user/customer starts to begin checkout but has not completed the purchase. Hence, you always wanted to know items which are not been purchased but the user has started checkout of the same.

Example of the ‘begin checkout’ event on the Shopify e-commerce store as per below:

We suggest collecting the below information along with the ‘begin checkout’ event on your Shopify store.

9. Comfortable with providing the address:  Add Shipping info

The number one reason people shop online is free delivery. Not surprised right? Free delivery + lowest cost is a magical combination to increase revenue and growth of the e-commerce business.

  • According to a survey, 74% of people abandon the purchase after seeing unsatisfactory shipping options.
  • 87% have purchased because shipping is free.
  • 55% of buyers said they added items to their cart to qualify for free delivery!
  • and 44% of shoppers abandon the cart after seeing that not qualify for free delivery.

If the user/shopper is not going for providing shipping info then there would be reasons like:

  • The shopper is not clear about delivery and hence he is not willing to fill up the shipping info and abandon the steps.
  • Too much lengthy information
  • The shopper does not want to give any private information
  • Shoppers see the final value of the product which is different before beginning to check out

The reason could be anything if the shopper is not going ahead after adding shipping information.

We suggest collecting the below information along with the ‘add shipping info’ event on your Shopify store.

10. Comfortable with providing payment info?:  Add Payment info

The most important part of buying a product in an e-commerce store is the online payment and its method.
According to a survey in 2021, 49% of total e-commerce payment was paid using mobile wallets and it is the most popular online payment method. Credit card is the second most popular method for online payments.

Some insights on payment:

  • 62% of shoppers had been lost who experienced payment failures.
  • 33% of failed payments are not reattempted.
  • most common causes of payment failure are:
  • 39% reported that too long process of payment.
  • 18% reported that they canceled the payment without any reason.
  • 8% reported payment failure due to banks/payment gateways.
  • Long checkout process due to long payment process accounts for 42% abandon cart rate

Hence analyzing the payment process and method is very important because it could be the reason for your revenue losses.

We suggest collecting the below information along with the ‘add Payment info’ event on your Shopify store.

11. Finally: Purchase

Tracking purchases is so satisfying! isn’t it? Who does not want to see tracking information regarding a purchase? Below Questions are most interesting for every business owner, digital marketer, and entrepreneur.

  • Which item sells the most?
  • Which product variations sell the most?
  • Which promotions triggered the highest revenue?
  • What is the ROI of my marketing campaign?
  • What is the impact of offering a discount on the product?

Tracking purchase events on regular basis give a lot of insight into the behavior of the customer and based on that you can make an effective decision, for example, by tracking purchase during the festival season you make a segment of users with information like demography, gender, product type, discount offered and etc and next time you can create a marketing campaign based on that data.

Below are sample purchase events

  1. With Credit Card
  1. With Cash on delivery
  1. Order Placed

We suggest collecting the below information along with the ‘purchase’ event on your Shopify store.

13. Know the reach of promotion: View the promotion

A promotional banner (internal promotion banner) gives a high probability of increasing revenue. But, you don’t know which banner has worked and gives attribution to revenue. CTR will not give an exact idea about the same.
Just check the below example of the promotional banner on the Shopify store on the home page. Most companies spend hundreds to thousands of dollar spend on designing promotions without knowing the contribution of banners to revenue.


It is important to track the internal promotion banner to know the effectiveness of the internal campaign.

We suggest collecting the below information along with the ‘view promotion’ event on your Shopify store.

14. Know the interest in promotion: Select promotion

Click on the internal promotion banner by a user indicates a very strong interest in the product. Some benefits of using select promotion tracking in GA4 on your Shopify website.

  1. Better targeting: if you want to understand which campaigns are most effective at reaching your target audience then this can help you tailor your future campaigns to better target the right customers.
  2. Better ROI: By tracking the specific promotions, you can identify which campaigns have the most value and adjust your marketing spending accordingly. This can help you optimize your marketing budget.
  3. Improved optimization: You can identify which elements of a campaign are working well and which are not. This can help you optimize your campaigns for better results.
  4. Enhanced reporting: More detailed and accurate reports on the performance of your marketing campaigns. This can help you make more informed decisions about your marketing strategy and tactics.

Below is a sample promotion banner on the Shopify website.

We suggest collecting the below information along with the 'Select promotion ’ event on your Shopify store.

Wrap Up

Tracking events on an e-commerce website requires both a technical understanding of the online purchase process as well as intuitiveness. However, experience and business acumen will play a pivotal role in leveraging analytics data and thus, it is necessary that you make select the events to be tracked accordingly.

Hope you would get detailed insight on what to track on your Shopify e-commerce store. If you wish to know more you can set up e-commerce events using Tagmate on your website then please start a trial of Tagmate.

Frequently Asked Questions

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