A user’s GA4 setup shows the purchase event registered in the Admin panel but not appearing in standard reports, despite add_to_cart events displaying correctly and revenue totals showing up.
Initial diagnosis: The issue likely stems from GA4’s data thresholding—a privacy feature that hides low-volume events. The recommended fix was switching Reporting Identity from “Blended” to “Device-based” to bypass this filtering.
Complication: The user’s GA4 instance only offers “Blended” or “Observed” options (shown in screenshot), not the expected “Device-based” setting.
Current conclusion: After further research, the user determined that:
Another participant confirmed this assessment, sharing experimental data comparing Shopify’s native integration against GTM with server-side tracking, showing significant discrepancies in event capture accuracy.
Status: Unresolved—the user will continue using Shopify’s built-in analytics until they can afford a paid server-side tracking solution.
Hi there, how do we troubleshoot and fix our GA4 integration?
In GA4, we can see the purchases event in: Admin → Data Display → Events. But in reports (like Engagement → Events) purchases don’t show - however add_to_cart does? We also see a dollar amount at he top under ‘Totals’ but no purchases event?
Any pointers in the right direction much appreciated. Cheers, Ben
Hey @Ben31
That’s one of the most confusing things about GA4, and it trips everyone up. The good news is your setup isn’t broken, the data is definitely getting there. The problem is that GA4 is being a bit picky about showing it to you in the main reports.
Here’s what’s almost certainly going on:
First, GA4 can be really slow. The main reports sometimes take a full two days to catch up, so if the purchases are recent, that might be all it is.
More likely, though, GA4 is being over-protective with your data. It’s a privacy thing called “thresholding,” and it often hides events like purchase because there aren’t as many of them as, say, add_to_cart.
Admin > Data Display > Reporting Identity. Switch it over to the Device-based option. This tells GA4 to relax on the privacy modeling and just show you the data.Hope this helps!
@PieLab Thanks so much David, very much appreciated.
The transition to GA4 was so confusing we just stopped using it (it doesn’t seem to show much). If culling non-experts was the whole point of GA4, it worked!
Anyway, we don’t seem to see a Device-based option - we only see Blended or Observed (see attached). Are we in the right place?
After another day researching, the consensus seems to be that client-side tracking is unreliable, and that Shopify’s Google integration is broken. Shopify support will say it’s Google but Google say it’s Shopify.
It seems a lot of people recommend server-side tracking via paid apps like Analyzify or LittleData. We’ll struggle on with Shopify’s limited and painful to use analytics (endless pointing and clicking, my god!) until we’re large enough to afford a paid solution. Bummer.
It is obvious that shopify navitve integration is not the most accurate method to track the ecommverce events whether for GA4 or any other platform.
GTM integration with server side tracking could help you with the most possible accurate result.
I run some experiments on my clients ends with both integration. shopify app, google tag manager GTM and server side tracking. See the result:
