Big Commerce Data Issue
Hello there,
We are running Google Shopping & PMax campaign for our eCommerce store. We have integrated our prdoucts Feed with using “Ads and Listing on Google” App from Big Commerce. Now my Google Ads didn’t tracked
Purchasedata correctly soShould I reply on Ads & Listing on Google
PurchaseData?Does Ads & Listing on Google has automatically captures the purchases data?
Does any body uses the Big Commerce Ads and Listing Plugin from Big Commerce?
The short answer is:
You should absolutely not rely on the BigCommerce “Ads and Listing on Google” app for accurate purchase conversion data in Google Ads, as it is a client-side solution that is highly susceptible to data loss from browser restrictions, ad blockers, and slow page loads.
It is likely the cause of your current tracking problem.
The app does attempt to automatically capture purchase data, but the method it uses is often unreliable for advertising platforms.
The immediate solution is to implement server-side tracking using BigCommerce’s API/webhooks, an intermediate tool like Google Tag Manager and Stape (or Google Cloud Platform), and the Google Ads API for ultimate accuracy and resilience.
The long answer is:
The “Ads and Listing on Google” app primarily focuses on syncing your product feed to Google Merchant Center and setting up the initial Google tag for client-side tracking, which involves placing a piece of code on your storefront’s pages.
The key issue is that this client-side method, which fires the purchase event directly from the user’s browser, is fundamentally flawed for conversion tracking in the current digital privacy landscape.
Many factors cause data to be lost, including Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) in browsers like Safari, various ad-blocking software, and users failing to reach the final ‘Thank You’ page due to connection issues or early navigation.
This leads to underreported purchase data in Google Ads, which causes PMax and Shopping campaigns to mis-optimize, resulting in a poor return on ad spend.
A much better and more resilient solution is to implement server-side tracking.
This involves a few key components that work together.
First, you utilize the BigCommerce API and Webhooks functionality to listen for the critical ‘order created’ or ‘order status updated’ event directly from your BigCommerce server.
This is a highly reliable source of truth for a purchase, as it triggers when the transaction is finalized, not just when a page loads in the user’s browser.
Second, that webhook can send the complete purchase data to a service like Stape or your own infrastructure on Google Cloud Platform, which hosts a Server-Side Google Tag Manager container.
Stape offers an excellent, cost-effective way to host this, making it cheap to implement and maintain.
Third, the Server-Side GTM container uses the Google Ads API, specifically the Conversion API, to send the ‘purchase’ Standard Event and its related values (like transaction ID, value, and currency) directly to Google’s servers.
This server-to-server connection completely bypasses client-side restrictions like ad blockers and ITP, ensuring a much higher and more accurate conversion capture rate.
Furthermore, you can leverage Enhanced Conversions by including hashed customer data like email in this server-to-server connection, which dramatically improves Google’s ability to match the purchase back to the initial ad click.
This robust, server-side implementation is the industry best practice for high-stakes campaigns like Google Shopping and PMax.
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