Ticketure supports the use of Google Analytics 4 (GA4) for the analysis and understanding of visitor habits in regard to the Ticketure eCommerce experience. Ticketure natively supports a number of key actions that a visitor can take on your site and raises those to Google Analytics via the Data Layer. The following events are raised during a visitor's journey in Ticketure. The following article outlines the configuration steps needed to complete the GA4 installation.
This article assumes you have already configured a Google Tag Manager (GTM) Container as well as created a Google Analytics 4 GA4 Account. If you need help creating your GTM Container or Base GA4 account please refer to the following articles - GTM / Analytics and return to this article for the remaining steps.
Google Analytics Setup
Data Streams
GA4 tracking is collected through Data Streams, which are configured to capture data based on the device/medium the visitor is using. For Ticketure's eCommerce you will want to track events through a 'Web' Data Stream. To create a new Data Stream, within the GA4 Property admin configuration, select 'Data Streams'. Click the 'Add Stream' button and select 'Web'.
If you are using GA4 on your main website already, you will not need to create a new Stream, but instead, note the Measurement ID for that existing Web Stream (typically starts with 'G-' + 10 alphanumeric characters and is located in the red square in the last image of this section).
You will be presented with a form to enter the URL and name for your stream.
Once you have saved the Stream you will be shown the Web Stream details page which will provide you with the Measurement ID that we will use when configuring Google Tag Manager.
Within each Data Stream, there are a number of configuration options that may pertain to your situation, from connecting your GA3/UA account to your GA4 account to custom events and cross-domain tracking. Ticketure does not require these to be configured to capture events from its website but may be required in your situation to ensure the full customer journey tracking from your website, through to the conversion in Ticketure.
Data Settings/Google Signals
To get the full understanding of your visitors, ads, sources, etc. it is recommended that you enable Google Signals which is located within the Data Settings/Data Collection section of the Property configuration. Enabling Google Signals and the other Data Collection options provides a number of key analytics that can be useful in understanding your visitor demographics, cross device browsing, and ad response. We suggest that you enable this feature and acknowledge all the data collection requirements to ensure you get the most out of GA4.
Google Tag Manager
Google Tag Manager (GTM) is the source that tells Google Analytics what is going on on your page. In this section, we will outline the events that are fired, and how to trigger those events for your particular visitor journey track.
Events
At the root of communication between Ticketure and GA4 are the events that are being raised via Google Tag Manager as the visitor performs certain actions on your site. Organizations can pick and choose which events they want to define as not all of them are required for proper visitor tracking. The following is a list of events that are supported, the action that triggers the event, and the information contained in the data layer for that event.
Event | Triggers when... | Data Layer provides... |
page_view | a visitor visits any page on the Ticketure site | NA |
view_item | a visitor views a particular item's detail page | provides the details of the item that is being viewed. |
add_to_cart | a visitor adds a particular item to the cart | the details of the item, price, and quantity of the items that are being added to the cart |
remove_from_cart | a visitor removes an item from their cart | the details of the item, price, and quantity of the item(s) that were removed from the cart |
begin_checkout | a visitor clicks on any field on the checkout page (CC, Name, etc) | the details of the items, the value of the items within the cart |
purchase | a visitor completes their transaction | the details of all items purchased |
The following events are not currently supported but may be considered for future updates: select_item, add_payment_info, select_promotion, add_shipping_info, view_item_list, add_to_wishlist, view_cart, refund, view_promotion.
To expedite the configuration process, we have provided a GTM Container Template that will create all the tags, triggers, etc within a 'Ticketure' folder within your existing GTM Container. The rest of this article will discuss how to install the container and the few adjustments needed to complete the installation.
If you still prefer to configure the container manually, you can access those steps on our GA4 Manual Setup page.
Container Template Installation
To ease configuration, we have provided a preconfigured GTM Container that you can import into your existing container. This container will set up all the tags, triggers, and variables needed within a 'Ticketure' folder for ease of management. To complete the installation follow the following Steps.
1. Navigate to GTM Admin/Import Container
2. Select the Proper Import Settings
- Select the Ticketure GA4 Container file (download here).
- Choose the workspace you want to import the container into (Default Workspace)
- Choose to Merge the Container contents (VERY IMPORTANT - DO NOT RUN IN OVERRITE - IT WILL REMOVE ALL OTHER CONTAINER ITEMS).
- Choose Rename for any conflicting tags (just in case we think alike in our naming)
- Confirm your numbers look like these. 8 Tags, 7 Triggers, 1 Variable.
After you have confirmed your Import settings show the proper 'Preview', click the Confirm button.
Can't say this enough, please be sure you do not run this import process in 'Overwrite' mode unless you are ok with this replacing ALL your existing tags, triggers, etc in your existing Container. Use 'Merge' you can always clean it up later.
Once complete, confirm the Import of 17 items into the workspace. If you had other changes before importing the container template, your number could be higher.
Adjust Container Values
Now that all the container items are ready, you will need to adjust 2 things in the imported details.
Adjust the `page hostname` Criteria on ALL Triggers
Each trigger has been configured to not only limit the firing based on the action being executed, but also to the specific Ticketure site (if you track multiple Purchase actions across your site - you want to only fire this one on the Ticketure pages). Within GTM, for each Trigger perform the following updates:
Select the Trigger from the List
Click in the existing 'Page Hostname' Criteria
Replace value with your Ticketure site URL
Set the `Ticketure - MeasurementID` variable
The last update that is needed is to set the MeasurementID to the MeasurementID of the Google Analytics Stream created for Ticketure (value we copied from above). To do this, simply copy the MeasurementID from Google Analytics, Click on Variables in GTM, and Edit the Ticketure - MeasurementID and set the 'Value' to your MeasurementID.
Select Variables (menu) and select Ticketure - MeasurementID
Update the Value to be the MeasurementID from Google Analytics Stream
Test and Publish
In order for Ticketure to send events to your GTM container your Ticketure instance needs to have your Container ID added to the Ticketure configuration. To do this, open a support ticket sending your Container ID to the support team and they will be happy to set this for you. Once that is set, the only think left to do is test the settings via GTM's debug and then publish to your site.
Need a Video
Feel free to watch our Google Analytics Webinar video on how to set the container up and some reporting options you will have available in Google Analytics.
Data Layer
The eCommerce.Items Data Layer passed by Ticketure to GTM is constructed in the following format.
ecommerce: {
currency: "USD", -- operating currency defined within Ticketure
value: 30, -- value of the items in the cart
items: [
{
item_id: "ffcaa1ca-e1a5-03dc-eeb8-90fc7c97977b", -- Event GUID
item_name: "Museum Admission", -- Name of the Event
item_category: "Exhibits", -- Event Category
item_category2: "Individual", -- Ticket Group
item_category3: "Adult", -- Ticket Type
item_category4: "tickets", -- Handler (tickets, membership, codes, gift cards, donation, etc)
price: 15, -- Unit Price of each item
coupon: "", -- coupon that is applied to the item
quantity: 2, -- quantity of items added
discount: 0 -- value of the discount applied
}
]
}
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