Google Analytics Audit Test #

83

Match Between Item Revenue and Purchase Revenue

Why It Matters:

Critical to understanding the performance of your site on a product-by-product basis.

Industries:

Ecommerce

Checks For:

Accuracy

How accurate is your recent data?

Insight Category:

Behavior

Can you tell what visitors are doing?

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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 checks whether item-level revenue (from the items array in ecommerce events) matches total purchase revenue (from the purchase event’s value parameter).

These two figures should align, or be within a very small variance.

When they don’t, it often points to one of the following issues:

  • Missing price or quantity values in the items array
  • Incomplete or malformed ecommerce objects
  • Tax, shipping, or discount values being included in one value but not the other
  • Multiple sources sending inconsistent data

Mismatches lead to misleading product performance reports and revenue inconsistencies across Google Analytics, BigQuery, and BI tools.

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How to Conduct This Test

Basic Tests

  • In Google Analytics > Explore, create a Free-form report:
    • Metrics: Item revenue, Purchase revenue
    • Dimensions: Item name, Transaction ID
  • In BigQuery, you can run a query comparing:
    • The sum of item.price * quantity for each transaction (from the items array)
    • Versus the value field in the purchase event
  • Look for:
    • Transactions where item revenue is $0
    • Transactions where item revenue ≠ purchase revenue
    • Systematic under- or over-reporting by product or category

Automated, Free Audit

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How To Fix

  • Ensure your purchase event includes:
    • A complete and properly structured items array, each item in the array must include:
      • item_id
      • item_name
      • price
      • quantity
  • If using Google Tag Manager, confirm the ecommerce object is passed before the event fires
  • Align server-side and client-side implementations if using hybrid tracking
  • Exclude shipping, tax, and discounts from the item revenue unless your reporting model includes them at the item level
  • Hire a pro to fix your ecommerce tracking setup and restore confidence in your Google Analytics revenue data.

Tips from a Google Analytics Consultant

Focus on Insights

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

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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!

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