Conversion tracking
Hello I am attempting to set up my first Google ads account. I found a video to set up conversion from Shopify by adding a custom pixel in customer and replacing the gtag and conversion label. The customer conversion tracks value, transaction id, and currency.
After this, I learned a bit about google shopping ads and connecting the merchant center. I installed the Google and YouTube app on Shopify and it asks if I want conversion tracking on and also prompts a duplicating conversions message. I went ahead and turned on conversions anyway and if my understanding is correct, I am now duplicating conversions. In my google ads account, I know have 2Purchaseconversions, one custom and one from google shopping. Should I just keep the Google shopping ads conversion and remove the custom conversion I created or will it not matter? I am assuming my custom pixel will not provide data to Google analytics if the conversion tracking from the google shopping purchase is not connected?
The short answer is:
You absolutely should resolve the duplicated conversion tracking by deactivating one of the two “Purchase” conversion actions in your Google Ads account, specifically the one created via the older custom pixel method.
Keeping both active will lead to inflated and inaccurate reporting, directly impacting your bidding strategies and return on ad spend.
You should keep the conversion action that was automatically created via the Google & YouTube app and Google Merchant Center integration, as this is the recommended and most robust method.
This integration typically handles data transfer to Google Ads, Google Analytics 4 (GA4), and Merchant Center seamlessly, often leveraging server-side data synchronization.
The custom pixel method you initially used is an older, client-side approach that can be inconsistent and is redundant when the official app is installed.
Furthermore, the official app’s conversion tracking is designed to work with Google Analytics 4’s data model, ensuring your purchase data flows correctly into GA4 for comprehensive analysis, especially when paired with the Google Analytics Data API and BigQuery API for advanced reporting in Looker Studio.
The long answer is:
Your assumption about duplicating conversions is correct, and this is a critical issue that must be fixed immediately.
When two conversion actions track the same user event (a purchase) and are both set as “Primary” for bidding, Google Ads counts two conversions for a single transaction, severely skewing your performance data and causing your Smart Bidding strategies to overspend based on an inflated perceived value.
You should keep the conversion action created by the official Google & YouTube app from Shopify because this app facilitates a robust, server-side data connection between Shopify and the Google ecosystem, including Google Ads, Merchant Center, and Google Analytics 4.
The integration from the official app is generally more resilient to browser restrictions like Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) and is future-proofed by Google.
You should immediately set the custom pixel conversion action you manually created to “Secondary” or “Removed” within your Google Ads account settings to stop it from counting towards your reporting and bidding.
The notion that your custom pixel is the only way to send data to Google Analytics is outdated; the official Google & YouTube app handles the linkage between Shopify, Google Ads, and Google Analytics 4.
For advanced users, to further ensure data quality and reconcile discrepancies between Shopify’s records and Google Ads, you can leverage the Google Ads API to programmatically upload offline conversion data, enriching your reporting with server-confirmed purchase data and further deduplicating events using unique transaction IDs, which your custom pixel was already passing.
If you wanted to move beyond the limitations of the app, you could use Google Tag Manager and Stape to implement a server-side setup, utilizing the Shopify API/webhooks to reliably push purchase data to a Google Cloud Platform (GCP) environment and then send it to the Google Analytics Measurement Protocol and the Google Ads API for the highest level of data accuracy and control.
To analyze all this clean conversion data in depth, you should consider integrating BigQuery API to export your raw Google Analytics 4 data and then visualize it using the Looker Studio API for custom reporting and actionable insights, making this API integration a cost-effective choice by ensuring your ad spend is optimized based on truly accurate conversion counts.
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