Magento is built for serious selling. Flexible catalogue structures, layered pricing, and custom checkout flows make it powerful for e-commerce businesses that are scaling fast.
But there’s a problem. Google Analytics 4 doesn’t always keep up.
Out of the box, GA4 can give you a blurry view of what’s actually happening in your Magento store. It misses key context. And sometimes, it gets things completely wrong.
Are you really seeing what your customers are doing?
What GA4 Tracks — And What It Doesn’t
GA4 isn’t Universal Analytics with a facelift. It’s a whole new model — built around events, not sessions. That’s fine in theory. But Magento’s complexity can trip it up.
When someone browses a product, adds it to cart, checks out, and completes a purchase, GA4 sees it as a series of events:
- view_item
- add_to_cart
- begin_checkout
- purchase
Sounds clear enough. But here’s where it breaks down.
In Magento, a product might have dozens of custom attributes. A configurable product might trigger five AJAX calls in the background. Checkout steps could be handled by custom modules or third-party checkout extensions. GA4 doesn’t pick that up by default.
Here’s what often goes missing:
- Coupon usage at checkout
- Payment method selection
- Custom shipping logic
- Failed payment attempts
- Abandoned carts with filled contact forms
- Logged-in user data vs guest checkouts
GA4 doesn’t know how Magento renders these unless you tell it.
This isn’t just about missing numbers. It’s about bad data driving worse decisions. You might think checkout conversions dropped — when the event never triggered in the first place.
Where Magento Merchants Get Stuck With GA4
This is where most Magento store owners run into trouble. GA4 might be installed. Basic tracking is running. But the reports don’t match what you see in Magento’s backend.
Why?
Because Magento doesn’t use a generic, single-page app structure. GA4 assumes event flows will be predictable. Magento doesn’t always play by those rules. Especially when you customise checkout, add B2B modules, or use third-party themes.
Let’s say a customer completes a purchase using a one-step checkout extension. If that extension doesn’t fire the purchase event correctly — or if it uses a non-standard trigger — GA4 records nothing.
Now multiply that error across hundreds of orders per day. Suddenly, your analytics dashboard becomes useless.
Many Magento stores show these symptoms:
- High add-to-cart rates, but no recorded checkouts
- Multiple purchases showing with missing revenue
- Users disappearing mid-funnel with no exit event
- Orders confirmed in Magento but missing in GA4
This creates serious issues for performance marketers. ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) calculations are off. Campaigns get paused. CRO tests fail without reliable data.
GA4 doesn’t track everything because it wasn’t built with Magento in mind.
How to Track Magento Conversions Properly in GA4
Fixing GA4 starts with understanding what data you need — and what you can realistically get from Magento.
Start with the basics. Use Google Tag Manager (GTM) to implement and control your GA4 events. That gives you visibility and flexibility. Magento supports GTM integration, either directly or through modules like Anowave GTM for Magento 2.
Once GTM is active, set up the following:
- Enhanced e-commerce tracking for product views, cart actions, checkout steps, and purchases
- Custom dimensions for customer group (guest vs logged-in)
- Custom events for coupon codes, shipping selections, and payment method
- Error tracking (failed payments, invalid form entries)
It’s important to name events clearly. Magento doesn’t follow Shopify’s clean naming. You’ll need to align product IDs and SKUs to match your GA4 ecommerce schema.
GA4 now supports server-side tagging — useful for capturing events that happen outside the browser (e.g. delayed order confirmation emails, returns, refunds). Consider using a server container if you’re handling sensitive or delayed data.
When you build your GA4 reports:
- Use Looker Studio (formerly Data Studio) for custom views
- Segment by traffic source and device
- Filter conversions by payment method or shipping zone
Make sure you compare GA4 data to Magento backend reports monthly. Look for unexplained drops or gaps. They usually mean an event is broken or missing.
GA4 doesn’t track your Magento store out of the box. You have to teach it what matters.
The Stuff You Still Won’t See in GA4 — And What To Do About It
Even with a perfect setup, GA4 still misses things.
It won’t show:
- Real customer lifetime value (only per-session conversions)
- User journeys across devices (unless users log in consistently)
- Backend orders placed by staff or sales reps
- Post-purchase actions like return requests or quote responses
- Any visibility into B2B workflows or approval chains
That’s not GA4’s fault. It’s just not built for that level of e-commerce depth.
To bridge this gap, you’ll need external tools.
Segment.com and Klaviyo offer better customer-level tracking. They let you tag users across sessions, link email engagement to sales, and map complex journeys.
For serious Magento stores, consider server-side analytics using tools like Snowplow or Heap. They give you raw behavioural data that can be stitched to Magento order tables.
If your store does both B2C and B2B, GA4 won’t be enough on its own. You’ll need Magento-native analytics or custom dashboards pulling from your own database.
Magento’s built-in reports help, but aren’t great for marketing teams. A better option is to extract order data into Looker Studio and blend it with GA4 traffic reports.
Match:
- GA4 source/medium
- Landing page
- Device
- Magento customer group
- Magento sales data
Now you’ve got usable conversion insights that tie back to the real business.
Getting meaningful data from GA4 on a Magento store takes work. The defaults won’t cut it. If your conversion tracking feels off, it probably is. Make GA4 fit your stack — not the other way round. The sooner you take control, the sooner your data will start making sense.
