Google Analytics Audit Test #

136

Transactions Happen on the Landing Page

Why It Matters:

Critical to understanding the performance of your site.

Industries:

Ecommerce

Checks For:

Accuracy

How accurate is your recent data?

Insight Category:

Attribution

Can you tell which marketing efforts are working?

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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 identifies whether purchase events (transactions) are happening on the same page users land on, which can be a red flag. Normally, users should go through a series of product views, cart additions, and checkout steps before completing a transaction.

If purchases occur immediately upon landing, it may indicate:

  • Duplicate or misfired purchase events
  • Server-side events not tied to actual user sessions
  • Post-transaction redirects incorrectly counted as new sessions
  • Incorrect Google Analytics implementation on confirmation or thank-you pages

This can inflate conversion rates, misrepresent user behavior, and break funnel analysis.

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Google Analytics audit test results.

How to Conduct This Test

Basic Tests

  • In Google Analytics > Explore, create a report with:
    • Dimensions: Landing page + query string, Event name
    • Metric: Event count (filtered to purchase)
    • Look for landing pages with unexpected or frequent purchase events.

Advanced QA

  • In BigQuery, run a query comparing the page_location of the purchase event with the session's landing_page:
    SELECT 
      event_timestamp,
      user_pseudo_id,
      event_name,
      landing_page,
      page_location
    FROM `your_dataset.events_*`
    WHERE event_name = 'purchase' AND page_location = landing_page
  • If many purchases occur directly on landing, it's worth investigating.

Automated, Free Audit

Want this flagged automatically? Run our Instant Audit

Or hire a pro to help trace and fix transaction tracking anomalies.

How To Fix

  • Check Google Tag Manager or site code to ensure the purchase event only fires on valid transaction completion pages—not reloads or redirects.
  • Ensure server-side tagging (if used) has logic to prevent duplicate transactions or late attribution to new sessions.
  • Prevent thank-you pages from being indexable or revisited in a way that re-triggers the purchase event.
  • Use session-scoped deduplication logic via transaction_id to ignore repeated transactions in the same session.
  • Hire a pro to review your ecommerce tagging strategy and protect the accuracy of your revenue reporting.

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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