Issues in GA4 while using Shopify Custom Pixel

Technical Q&A
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1

Hi,

When we try to use the custom pixel for our GA4, it automatically sends the page_location that includes some information about the sandbox. That’s why we can’t see the real page location in GA4. This is weird. The documentation says to turn off the automatic page tracking to send that manually. But right now in GA4, it is impossible to stop automatic page tracking.

Even the GA4 setup with custom pixels shows most of the user acquisition as (not set) and the engagement time for pages doesn’t appear properly.

Need a solution for all these so we can run the tracking through custom pixels smoothly.

Thanks.

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4 Likes
2

Have the same issue where engagement time doesn’t appear and shows as 0. Made some changes and sending send_page_view false in Config tag and sending separate page view tag, which helped us see the user_engagement events finally, however it still shows 0.

3

What changes you made to see the user_engagement event in GA4? I am facing the same issue, sending a separate page view tag based on the Shopify page_viewed event and setup send_page_view to false in Google Tag, firing on All Pages. Are you able to see engagement time in GA now?

4

Unfortunately not. I’ve tried many stuff but couldn’t get the engagement time going. One other thing I’ll try which is a long shot is that we have duplicate dataLayer, meaning one is still on top where the Consent Management Platform creating and one dataLayer in custom pixel. I’ll try removing the one from top to see if that’ll change things. I’d appreciate if you can figure this out and update here, I’ll do the same if so.

5

I am testing in the test store to see if the custom pixel works (to migrate GA4 for a client from google youtube app to gtm). Consent banner is not enabled. Hence no duplicate data layer.

6

disable default page view tracking via below code:

gtag('config', TAG_ID, {'send_page_view': false});
7

There is other reasons for traffic appearing as “not set”. To narrow them down be sure make the following changes.

  • Try to make sure no other events run before the initial pageview event (maybe use trigger groups in GTM)
  • Set the default session duration in GA4 to 8 hours to avoid abandoned browser tabs causing new sessions
  • Override the page_location in all your tags with the spec you posted above
  • Disable automatic scroll and click tracking in GA4
8

I have the same issue