Google Analytics Audit Test #

50

Duplicate Transactions: Too Close Together

Why It Matters:

Critical to understanding user/site behavior and ROI/ROAS.

Industries:

Ecommerce

Checks For:

Accuracy

How accurate is your recent data?

Insight Category:

Behavior

Can you tell what visitors are doing?

Google Analytics Audit logo

Background

A GA4 audit is essential for uncovering missing insights—key data points that organizations don't yet know and can act upon. A well-done audit evaluates both behavioral tracking and traffic attribution, ensuring each is accurate and useful. It also assesses whether the data collected truly supports business decisions and reporting.

Test Detail

This test evaluates whether multiple transactions are recorded in an unusually short timeframe within the same session or from the same user.

It can indicate accidental duplicate firing—especially on refresh, back button, or improper tag logic.

These false positives inflate revenue and distort conversion rates.

Check This Test for Free! Instantly.

Our free instant audit tool checks for 90 issues in 90 seconds.

Then gives you a prioritized list of items to tackle.

No cost, no sales call... just free goodness.
‍

Run a free instant audit
Google Analytics audit test results.

How to Conduct This Test

Basic Tests

  • In GA4 Explore or BigQuery, query purchase events by session or user ID and timestamp.
  • Look for:
    • Multiple purchases within seconds or a few minutes of each other.
    • Consecutive transaction IDs with irregularly close event timestamps.

Advanced QA

  • Run the below query in BigQuery:
    SELECT user_pseudo_id, event_timestamp, transaction_id
    FROM `your_project.analytics_xxxx.events_*`
    WHERE event_name = 'purchase'
    ORDER BY user_pseudo_id, event_timestamp;
  • Identify whether the same user or session has multiple transactions too close together to be plausible.

Automated, Free Audit

Want to avoid the time consuming task of finding out if you have this issue? — Run our Instant Audit

Want help fixing this tricky issue? Hire a pro to dig into your GTM triggers and ecommerce setup.

How To Fix

  • Prevent the purchase event from firing on page reloads or back button by using session or localStorage flags.
  • Make sure your ecommerce trigger in GTM fires only on successful completion (not on load).
  • Review SPA behavior or custom redirect flows that may trigger the same tag twice.
  • Hire a pro to debug your ecommerce tag logic and ensure clean, deduplicated revenue.

Tips from a Google Analytics Consultant

Focus on Insights

Every Google Analytics audit should result in a plan for more insights.

‍

An insight is:

  • something you don't know
  • and can act on to improve performance

The Goal

Identify and remove insight blockers. Don't get tempted to track things you can't act on!

Hire a Google Analytics Consultant
Google Analytics consultant