OPC and Google Analytics

[acushing]

I'm having difficulty with getting Google Analytics to track conversions using OPC for VM3/J3 - in short, it doesn't track conversions. I've entered the appropriate # in the Google Analytics section, enabled tracking on the General Config section, and enabled scripts for Confirmed by Shopper/Confirmed/Refunded/Cancelled statuses... as near as I can tell. However, it's unclear what it wants added to the code boxes for these statuses to get things to work properly. Help?

[admin]

hello austin, after checking your site via the backend, i also configured this:

- at the payment tab, i added paypal to the referal handling section, so it does not think that paypal is a referal of your purchases

- i enabled tracking for "pending" status because:
-- when enabled for pending status, it will get triggered/executed immidiately after the order is made
-- when customers pay with paypal, they many times do not return to the site at all and thus opc cannot execute the code (at the moment, later i want to add server-to-server google analytics, but it would be missing some important that compared to an executed code in customer's browser)
-- you said that the authorize.net has a delay for the actual sale request, and this delay most probably leads to a delayed order status change.

for this reason, i enabled it for pending status and in my tests, it was triggered properly. let us know if you see the data in your google analytics.

best regards, stan

[padalec]

HI,

Any ideas why some order are missing from Google analytics ?

any known issues?

[admin]

hello, the most probably reason is that :
- if you enabled them for other statuses than pending, the code gets executed after the customer returns
- if you enabled them for the pending status, the code may not have time to get executed during the redirect to paypal

now the problem is that sometimes (or many times) customer either do not return from paypal to your site OR paypal sends notification of the updated payment status AFTER the customer returned to your site. If the customer does not navigate on your site after the order is made, the code may not get executed at all.

another probable reason for the code not being executed is that the customer is using a browser which triggers a javascript error on your site which prevents any execution of the javascript (see your pages with key F12, click console at either firebug on FF or g.chrome dev tools) -> IE11 has an emulation mode where you can test the scripts against IE10 or similar browsers. Pls note that even we try to support IE8, it's not generally supported by VM itself and you should discourage your customer to do orders with IE8 as their personal data or credit card information can easily get stolen if their computer is infected (anyhow). Even MS does not recommend running IE8 due to the way the security was implemented there.

for the above reasons we are preparing a "server to server" code that would trigger the GA order events regarless of the customer's browser. Server-to-server code execution may be missing some important data such as the browser/os and other information which can only be fetched with javascript.

best regards, stan

[padalec]

Thank you for extensive explanation of possible causes.

Best regards,