Google Analytics no longer receiving data from Shopify store post updating tag.
I have had a store on Shopify for several years. Never had any issues implementing Google Analytics tags as it is simply a case of copying the code and dropping it into a box on my Shopify Admin page.
Last week I got an email from Google saying I needed to update my global site tag – as such, I deleted the old code and copied a ‘new’ piece of tracking code from my Analytics accounts and dropped it into Shopify.
Within a day or so, I started getting a very high bounce rate (over 90% of traffic) and this morning, I had zero traffic showing and a check on my website using the Chrome extension Tag Assistant showed that no tag whatsoever was installed on my website (notwithstanding it showed that the global site tag was correctly installed post the above steps to install the ‘new’ global site tag).
Anyone know what to do here? Since this morning, I have received a trickle of traffic but with 100% bounce rate.
I can’t think what else might be configured incorrectly. Wondering if this has anything to do Google Analytics 4? Have tried support but waiting on a callback and have had no success resolving unrelated issues (Merchant Centre) with support in recent months.
The short answer is:
Your issue is a classic symptom of client-side tracking failure and a probable switch from the old Universal Analytics tag to the new Google Analytics 4 (GA4) “Google Tag” which was incorrectly implemented or conflicts with Shopify’s default tracking mechanism, causing the tag to not fire and subsequent data loss (zero traffic).
The reported high bounce rate is a strong indicator of a duplicate or improperly configured pageview tag in a previous Universal Analytics setup that wasn’t fully removed, where a subsequent GA4 tag is now failing to load altogether.
The solution is to remove all remnants of manual client-side code, use the Shopify Customer Events feature for data layer population, and implement a server-side GA4 setup using Google Tag Manager (GTM) and a server container platform like Stape or Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
This approach utilizes the Google Analytics Measurement Protocol to bypass browser-side limitations and ensure reliable data transmission from your Shopify backend to your GA4 property, providing a stable, accurate, and cost-effective long-term solution.
The long answer is:
The complete failure of data collection after updating your Google Analytics tag is almost certainly due to an incomplete or conflicting implementation of the new Google Tag (G-XXXXXXXX) within the Shopify Admin’s Google Analytics field, which is primarily designed for the older Universal Analytics code or the Shopify-Google integration app.
When you manually copy and paste the new Google Tag, it often doesn’t integrate correctly with the Shopify’s data layer variables, leading to the Tag Assistant showing no tag installed, as the code snippet is either being stripped out or is in a non-functional location.
The initial very high bounce rate and subsequent zero traffic point to two separate issues that need immediate resolution: first, you likely had two pageview tags firing on every page in your previous setup (one from Shopify’s native field and one hard-coded elsewhere) which artificially depressed the bounce rate, and when you deleted the old code, you only deleted one, leaving a broken or conflicting script; second, the new GA4 tag is now completely failing to execute on the client-side, resulting in no data.
To solve this, you must shift to a server-side tracking architecture which is a highly technical but superior and cost-effective approach that provides resilience against client-side issues like ad-blockers and privacy features.
The technical fix involves leveraging the Shopify API/webhooks ecosystem and Google Tag Manager (GTM) with a Stape or GCP hosted server container.
Specifically, you would use Shopify’s Customer Events feature, which is where you install a single custom pixel script that pushes standardized e-commerce event data to the client-side GTM web container’s Data Layer.
This GTM web container is then configured to forward a request to your Stape or GCP server container using the Google Tag.
The server container then uses the Google Analytics Measurement Protocol to directly send the complete, de-duplicated, and reliable event data to your Google Analytics 4 property.
This method is cost-effective because the initial setup is a one-time investment that drastically reduces ongoing troubleshooting time and prevents data loss, ensuring your marketing decisions are based on highly accurate information, and it solves your problem by taking the tracking logic out of the unpredictable client browser environment.
To further enhance your data utility and problem-solving capability, you should also consider leveraging the BigQuery API to export your raw GA4 event data into Google BigQuery for advanced, un-sampled analysis and long-term storage, which can then be visualized using the Looker Studio API for customized, highly detailed performance dashboards that surpass the native GA4 interface.
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