Google Analytics Audit Test #

7

'refund' Events Are Tracking

Why It Matters:

Critical to understanding actual revenue/ROAS, and understanding if there are consistent sources of traffic that lead to refunds.

Industries:

Ecommerce

Checks For:

Utility

How powerful is your current implementation?

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 refund events are properly implemented and recorded in GA4. Refund tracking enables you to:

  • See which products or transactions are being reversed
  • Adjust revenue and ROAS reporting accurately
  • Detect refund patterns by campaign, channel, or item
  • Integrate true LTV into your data warehouse or analytics dashboards

Without this data, your revenue and performance insights will be inflated and potentially misleading.

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How to Conduct This Test

Basic Tests

  • In GA4 > Reports > Events, search for the refund event and check for regular volume
  • In Explore, build a Free-form report:
    • Dimensions: Event name, Item name, Transaction ID
    • Metrics: Event count, Revenue
    • Filter for event_name = refund and break down by item or campaign to analyze trends

Advanced QA

  • In BigQuery, confirm the presence of refund events and validate formatting using this query:
    SELECT event_date, event_name, user_pseudo_id, ep.transaction_id
    FROM `your_dataset.events_*`, UNNEST(event_params) AS ep
    WHERE event_name = 'refund'
    LIMIT 1000;
  • If you don’t see refund events—or if transaction IDs are missing or mismatched—your refund tracking is incomplete.

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How To Fix

Implementing 'refund'

  • Use the recommended push to the dataLayer:
    • Without item data (for full refunds):
    gtag('event', 'refund', {
      transaction_id: 'T12345'
    });
  • Or with item data (for partial refunds):
    gtag('event', 'refund', {
      transaction_id: 'T12345',
      items: [
        {
          item_id: 'SKU_12345',
          quantity: 1
        }
      ]
    });
  • Trigger this event from your backend system when a refund is processed, ideally using server-side tagging
  • Ensure the transaction_id matches the original purchase event so GA4 can reconcile the data

QA Tips

  • Test using GA4 DebugView and monitor reports for anomalies (e.g., refunds exceeding purchases)
  • Hire a pro to integrate refund tracking into your analytics pipeline—so revenue accuracy isn't left to chance.

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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