Google Analytics Audit Test #

125

More 'payment_info' than 'begin_checkout'

Why It Matters:

Critical to understanding checkout behavior.

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 your Google Analytics property is reporting more payment_info events than begin_checkout events, which is almost always a sign of broken event sequencing or incorrect tag configuration. In a properly structured ecommerce funnel:

  • begin_checkout should occur when a user initiates the checkout process
  • payment_info should follow after shipping and contact information is entered
  • A purchase event should occur only after a successful transaction

If payment_info is greater than begin_checkout, it may mean:

  • Events are misfiring or duplicated
  • payment_info is firing on page load instead of user interaction
  • Checkout flow steps are skipped in tracking
  • Test data or bots are inflating certain events

This leads to inaccurate funnel reporting and makes it difficult to identify true drop-off points.

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How to Conduct This Test

Basic Tests

  • In Google Analytics > Explore, create a Free-form report:
    • Metrics: Event count
    • Dimensions: Event name, optionally filtered by device or source
    • Compare total counts of begin_checkout, add_shipping_info, add_payment_info, and purchase

Advanced QA

In BigQuery, you can run this query:

    SELECT event_name, COUNT(*) as event_count
    FROM `your_dataset.events_*`
    WHERE event_name IN ('begin_checkout', 'add_payment_info')
    GROUP BY event_name
  • If add_payment_info exceeds begin_checkout, especially by a wide margin, tracking logic needs to be reviewed.

Automated, Free Audit

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How To Fix

  • Review your tag setup in Google Tag Manager or your site’s code:
    • Ensure begin_checkout fires first, and only when a user takes a clear action to begin checkout
    • Ensure add_payment_info fires after contact and shipping info, typically on the payment screen load or button click
    • Deduplicate events by adding trigger conditions that prevent multiple firings from the same interaction
  • Use DebugView to walk through your checkout process and validate the order of events
  • If using server-side tagging, confirm that events are not being resent or mapped incorrectly
  • Hire a pro to audit and structure your ecommerce event tagging properly—so you can trust your funnel and optimize conversions effectively.

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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