Multiple Google Tags that blocks conversion tracking (I think) and makes me crazy, please help!
Hey,
I recently started running Google Ads on my Shopify store, but I’m still stuck on the conversion tracking for actions like “Add to Cart” or “Purchase.” The problem is that even though I manually trigger these conversions, I’m not receiving the data in Google Ads. Both Shopify and Google Support tell me the connections are set up correctly, but they are obviously not — this is driving me insane, so please have a look at my problem.
How do I know the setup is not correct?
I manually triggered all the conversions multiple times (e.g., by buying a product) and waited more than 7 days for them to appear.
Google Tag Manager shows the tag firing.
Tag Assistant also recognizes the tag.
I think the issue is that I have multiple tags. When I check Google Tag Manager, I can see two GT tags active. When I look at the Tag Coverage, I find:
GT-XXXXXX2JM → appears on ~485 URLs (main tag, including checkout and thank-you pages).
GT-XXXXXXNDP → appears on ~63 URLs.
Some pages are not tagged at all.
Some pages have two tags firing simultaneously.
This is already very confusing. I’m not sure which of these should be the main tag and which is secondary. When I looked at Google Ads and GA4, I found the GT-XXXXXX2JM tag, so I assumed this must be the main tag. After discussing with the Google Support AI, we identified the other tag might come from the Google Merchant Center. I deleted and reinstalled the Merchant Center account as instructed in shopify
Then something strange happened — I received from Merchant Center a completely new tag, GT-XXXXXSHV, which is now tagged to 7 URLs (landing page, checkout, and cart). The tag I had deleted from Shopify by removing the Merchant Center account is still active on its URLs — total chaos.
My suspicion is that the tag I always thought was my primary one (GT-XXXXXX2JM) was never actually recognized as the primary tag in Shopify. For example, in Google Ads and GA4 I see this warning:
“Unsupported tag implementation detected in Shopify. The Google tag is running in a custom Shopify pixel. This may result in double counting with your Google tag configured in the Google & YouTube app on your Shopify website.”
When I first set up conversion tracking, I started with a manual tag — maybe this is where the issue comes from. But that manual tag was deleted a long time ago (including cache, etc.), and now I’m only using the connection provided by the Google & YouTube app for simplicity.
My question:
How can I solve this tag chaos? Is it possible to merge the tags? So far I haven’t found any way to delete a tag — I only see the option to merge, which also seems risky to me. I’d like to have a clean setup with just one GT tag.
I really appreciate any help here!
The short answer is:
The core of your “tag chaos” is the existence of multiple, conflicting Google tag installations: likely a remnant manual/custom pixel tag, the tag from the Google & YouTube app, and potentially the new tag from your Merchant Center re-installation.
This duplication causes the Unsupported tag implementation detected in Shopify warning and leads to unreliable or zero conversion reporting due to data collision and potential double-counting confusion in the Google Ads system.
To resolve this, you must ruthlessly consolidate all tagging into the Google & YouTube app, which is Shopify’s sanctioned method that ensures proper data layer events are pushed for the checkout process, an area typically restricted on standard Shopify plans.
Once the app is the sole source, you should leverage server-side tracking using Google Tag Manager and a service like Stape (or GCP) to send purchase events directly to Google Ads via the Google Ads API (specifically, the Conversion API functionality).
This API integration bypasses client-side limitations (like ad blockers and browser restrictions) and significantly improves conversion accuracy and campaign optimization, offering a clean, cost-effective, and future-proof solution compared to relying entirely on client-side tags.
The long answer is:
Your problem is a classic one stemming from the evolution of Shopify’s platform and the various methods for deploying Google tags over time; the core issue is tag redundancy and the priority of the data source, as evidenced by the “Unsupported tag implementation detected in Shopify” warning which explicitly calls out a conflict between a custom pixel (your old manual tag remnant) and the new Google & YouTube app connection.
The first, most critical, and cost-effective step is a surgical removal of all non-app-based Google tag code snippets, including the manual tag you thought you deleted, any remnants in your theme.liquid file or additional scripts section of your checkout settings, and any custom pixels.
You must confirm this removal by checking the page source and using Google Tag Assistant on several key pages, including the checkout and thank-you pages, ensuring only one Google Tag (the one deployed by the Google & YouTube app) remains as the primary code.
Once the frontend is clean, you can use the Google tag management settings within your Google Ads or Google Analytics 4 (GA4) interface to review and potentially combine the different GT-XXXXXX IDs that you have access to, a feature Google provides to share configurations and expand coverage, though this is secondary to cleaning up the actual code implementation on Shopify itself.
To move beyond the instability of client-side tracking, the ultimate, most technical, and cost-effective solution for a serious Google Ads user is a complete migration to a server-side (sST) tracking architecture, which natively addresses your issue of unreliable conversion data.
This is achieved by using the Shopify API/webhooks to securely pass critical purchase event data – such as the transaction ID, value, and customer information for Enhanced Conversions—to a Google Tag Manager Server Container hosted on a cloud environment like Stape or GCP.
From the server container, you would then use the Google Ads API (which encompasses the Google Ads Conversion API functionality for server-to-server event reporting) to send the purchase event directly to Google Ads.
This process leverages the Wix APIs/webhooks to trigger the sST flow for critical events like a completed purchase, bypassing the limitations of browser-side tracking and ensuring a near-100% conversion match rate, which is superior for bidding and attribution optimization in Google Ads.
Furthermore, this server-side setup allows for a clean, single-source data stream, inherently solving the “multiple tags” chaos by sending the event from your server, not the client’s browser, making the setup cost-effective in the long run by significantly improving your ad campaign performance and data reliability for both Google Ads and your GA4 property.
Finally, to ensure you have a comprehensive view of your campaign performance, you should utilize the Google Analytics Data API to export your clean GA4 data into a centralized business intelligence platform like BigQuery API or visualize it directly using the Looker Studio API, allowing you to merge your purchase data with other business metrics for deeper, more actionable insights without relying solely on the sometimes-delayed reporting in Google Ads.
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