How To Implement Google Analytics & GA4 Server-Side Tracking with Shopify

Elevar offers two ways to implement Google Analytics and GA4 server-side tracking:

1. Elevar’s server-side tracking
2. GTM server-side container (via Elevar)

If you are using your own GTM server-side container connected to Google Cloud then you can follow our related guide on this setup here.

Please note that you have complete control over how your data is being sent to GA including:

• How to manage recurring subscription orders
• Order and product ID type
• What additional channels you want to send to GA — like Facebook and TikTok Shop, Draft Orders, Global orders from third party apps, etc

You can configure each of these in the steps below without modifying any code on your website.

Currently, the server-side integration sends only the purchase event via the server. The rest of the GA events come from your browser.

To set up your Universal Analytics Analytics non-purchase events:

1. Click here to be taken to the Pre-Built Universal Analytics (for Server-Side) tags.
2. Add in your Google Analytics Property ID > Select Download Container
3. Log into Google Tag Manager > Select your desired Web GTM Container
4. Navigate to Admin > Import Container > Upload the file you just downloaded from Elevar
5. Select New under Choose Workspace > titled it Elevar GA Server-Side
6. Select Merge > Then select Overwrite > Then Confirm
7. [Optional] QA the newly uploaded tags using Google Tag Manager’s Preview Mode

To set up your GA4 Non-Purchase events via the browser:

1. Click here to be taken to the Pre-Built GA4 (for Server-Side) tags.
2. Add in your GA4 Measurement ID > Select Download Container
3. Log into Google Tag Manager > Select your desired Web GTM Container
4. Navigate to Admin > Import Container > Upload the file you just downloaded from Elevar
5. Select New under Choose Workspace > titled it Elevar GA4 Server-Side
6. Select Merge > Then select Overwrite > Then Confirm
7. [Optional] QA the newly uploaded tags using Google Tag Manager’s Preview Mode
8. Once you’re ready to publish, navigate to the Elevar GA4 Server-Side Workspace > Select Submit at the top right > Then Publish

Currently the Elevar Server-Side integration just sends purchase conversions & refunds server-side. We will be releasing our sitewide server-side events into beta soon.

Most likely, you won’t need to adjust anything and can just select Save to continue to the next step.

Note: if you want to send refund data please select order ID in the next step.

Product SKU is almost always used as the primary product ID in Google Analytics integrations, but you can override this for your purchase events.

If you change this, just be sure you update all ecommerce events to use this new product identifier (e.g. add to cart, etc). Without this, your Shopping Behavior and product performance reports will not match up due to different IDs.

The native Shopify <> GA integration uses SKU so it’s best to keep SKU to maintain historical consistency.

Select Save to continue to the next step!

If you sell subscriptions then you have the ability to:

• Send first time orders only
• Send first time and recurring orders where the recurring orders use the attribution from the first order
• Send first time and recurring orders where you can send a custom source/medium/campaign for recurring orders (e.g. “recharge / recurring order”)

Start by Selecting your Shopify Subscription App

Choose if you are using Recharge/OrderGroove or another software.

If you are using another Subscription software that we don’t have listed, here is how to find your Recurring Order tag applied on orders:

1. Go to your Shopify Order grid
2. Filter the orders by the channel that powers your subscriptions
3. Look for orders that have the recurring order tag (this differs by app). For example ReCharge sets “Subscription” and “Subscription Recurring Order” on all recurring orders.

Then Choose to Send Only First Time Orders or Both First & Recurring Orders

If you only want to send first time orders only, select No, block.

If you want to send both first time & recurring orders, select Yes, send all.

If You do Send Recurring Orders, Choose your Desired Recurring Order Attribution Method

Select Yes to use the attribution of the original order for your recurring order. [How does this work?]

Select No, customize attribution, to specify the Source, Medium, & Campaign name for your recurring orders.

Add your Universal Analytics Property ID:

Check to see what Sales Channels you currently use. If you are using Sales Channels beyond the standard Shopify Checkout, (i.e. POS orders, Draft Orders, etc) then you can add source / medium overrides to bucket these orders into their own group in GA.

1. In the Google Analytics ID step, Select Advanced Options.

2. Select Customize by Channel (But you can also customize based on a specific Order Tag or Payment Gateway!)

3. Find the Channel Code (a.k.a. Source_name) for your Sales Channel

4. Input the Channel Code > And input what you’d like to appear as the Source, Medium, & Campaign in Google Analytics.

5. You can press Add Another to add another Override or press Save to continue.

In order to deploy Google Analytics via Google Tag Manager tags, you need to have a data layer implemented on your Shopify store that pushes customer, product, and order data that Facebook tags require.

If you don’t have a data layer for your Shopify store yet, then you can utilize Elevar’s data layer for Shopify. It’s a 1-click installation into your theme.

In Google Tag Manager, navigate to Admin > Import Container.

Choose the Universal Analytics (for Client-Side) container that you downloaded in Step 1.

Import it into a new Workspace. You can title this workspace whatever you’d like. I titled mine Elevar Implementation.

Select Merge > Then elect to Overwrite conflicting tags, triggers, and variables.

Once you’re ready to publish, select the Submit button in GTM.

Then select Publish.