Google Analytics E-Commerce Referrals not Logged Properly

-- HikaShop version -- : 4.2.1
-- Joomla version -- : 3.9.14
-- PHP version -- : 7.3

Not sure if this is on the Hikashop side or GA side.

Description of problem:

Google analytics reporting lumps all sales on website into the "Other" category. Upon further inspection, 99% of these are logged as "(not set)", implying there's either a lot of users using ad blocker, something is breaking in the direct call or there's some other thing going on with our checkout or GA that's preventing the correct logging.

Screenshot of data logged in GA:

Hi Nicolas,

It seems like this is still occurring after update to 4.2.2. From my understanding, UTM params are not needed for direct or organic search and only necessary for ads/social/email campaigns. However, (not set) implies something is not being passed to GA properly.

Also, here's what shows in the most recent order in the hikashop_order table in the order_payment_params column:

O:8:"stdClass":1:{s:12:"analytics_ga";s:44:"{"uuid":"484801840.1581374906","ul":"en-us"}";}

Hi Nicolas,

If user enters website from search engine, traffic should show up as organic. If a user types the URL in the browser to access the website, it should show up as direct. Referrals are the only ones that should require UTM parameters.

(not set) implies that something is breaking the logic which determines if organic or direct. I've made a test purchase with a designated referral with UTM params and that works perfectly. It's very odd that most of the transactions show as (not set). It's just the direct/organic conversions that seem to be breaking. This sounds like something is breaking between the time the user arrives on the site and finishes checkout.

Does this make more sense? Maybe you can test on your end direct vs organic.

Looks like it's breaking in the after_end view for some of the cases. Majority still shows as (not set) for landing page.

<input type="hidden" id="hikashop_checkout_analytics_field_ga" name="checkout[analytics][ga]" value="{"uuid":"1339775496.1544826346","ul":"en-us"}">

After some further investigation, i noticed my current GA plugin wasn't reporting the campaign, source, etc. properly. I unpublished the current one (Google Analytics Pro by Peter Bui) and reverted back to the Nice google analytics plugin.

After using the google analytics debugger, the campaign, source, etc. seems to be showing properly. However, after this change, the order_params are now missing (traded one problem for another).

Thanks for the detailed analysis!

Are other hikashop users on 4.2.2 also affected by this issue? Seems like pretty standard settings and would imply that everyone else would be having this issue.

Or is this inherit to the payment plugin i'm using? I.e., if i turn off the direct call and use a different paypal method that doesn't force the user to redirect to the paypal website (maybe Paypal express checkout that comes up in modal). This way the user stays on our website.

UPDATE: I tried turning off direct call with no luck, but starting tracking the GA params between checkout steps. On the very first step, it looks like there's a missing parentheses and quotation mark in the hikashop_analytics.php file. I found the issue with the quotation mark:

ga("ecommerce:addTransaction", {
	"id": "' . $order->order_id.'",
	"affiliation": "' . str_replace(array('\\','"'), array('\\\\', '\\\"'), $siteName) . '",
	"revenue": "' . round($order->order_full_price, 2) . '",
	"shipping": "' . round($order->order_shipping_price, 2) . '",
	"tax": "' . round($tax, 2) . '",
	"currency: "'.$currencyInfo->currency_code.'"
});
';

"currency: "'.$currencyInfo->currency_code.'"

"currency:" "'.$currencyInfo->currency_code.'"

UPDATE:

Made the "currency" fix in the hikashopanalytics.php file. Also, reinstalled my GA plugin and now i can see most of the GA tracking info throughout checkout:

Google and most other search engines are automatically tagged by GA for organic and GA should know that the user accessed the website directly (bookmark or typing URL in browser). UTM parameters in this case are not necessary (according to GA docs). For social, referrer, ads, etc., UTM parameters must be present for GA to properly assign each session/pageview/conversion.

With that being said, I'm not exactly sure how GA tags as organic or direct but it appears this information is lost either as soon as the user lands on our website (e.g., clicking google search result or typing www.mojooutdoors.com in browser). I've done these two tests multiple times and cannot see organic or direct as source after the purchase is made.

After speaking with Google Analytics rep and seeing what each piece of the GIF request that is sent back to GA, it appears that the campaign, source, and medium values are stored within the 'utmz' variable.

__utmz identifies traffic sources, campaign, medium, etc.:

http://springest.io/anatomy-of-google-analytics-cookies

An example from our website using omnibug plugin for chrome:

I found this document very useful for what needs to go through the analytics.js to send GA data through the browser upon checkout confirmation: developers.google.com/analytics/devguide...nalyticsjs/ecommerce

EDIT/UPDATE:

Inset up a Google analytics goal which is triggered when the after_end page is triggered and pulls in the medium, source and campaign. Assuming the problem is related to the cURL request from payment redirect, this goal would also result in (not set). However, it properly registers as Google / organic (although not registering as a transaction). Seems to me like whatever is transmitted from Hikashop to GA for the transaction is scrambling the data so GA doesn't know how to handle.

Hi Nicolas,

Can you please send to my personal email? For some reason I never get emails at my mojooutdoors.com address from Hikashop (including reply notifications).

Has this ever been solved "for everyone"? I have exactly the same problem - and I see that there was some "secret" version send to the original reporter. How do I solve this? Just to baseline I have exactly the same problem:
1. I'm running a Google Ads campaign
2. Google is correctly setting up query params/cookies when someone clicks the ad.
3. I can see incoming traffic from this ad in my google analytics.
4. I know people are "converting" - I've set up a custom conversion in GA which fires off on confirmation screen.
5. E-commerce tracking in principal works - I can see the orders information in GA.
6. None of the transactions are marked as coming from my ad - even though I know thanks to point 4 - that actually some of them bought something (but with simple conversation tracking I don't know how much they have spent - this is where I need HikaShop's E-commerce tracking).
Help!

I found this topic and have same problem. All transactions are as "Other" acquisition.
Have latest Hikashop.
Have you manage to solve this?