Hello everyone,

I'm in the process of connecting my Shopify store with Google Ads and Analytics to ensure effective tracking of my advertising campaigns, especially tracking purchases. From my research, I've gathered that installing the Google and YouTube Channel app for Shopify should allow a direct connection with Google Ads and Analytics, theoretically enabling purchase tracking without additional configurations.

Here are my specific questions:

1. Integration Requirements: Do I really only need the Google and YouTube Channel app for Shopify to activate purchase tracking, or are there hidden settings or additional steps I need to be aware of? Specifically, I'm wondering if I need to configure the Google Tag Manager or any other tools.

2. Verification of Tracking: How can I make sure that the tracking is working correctly before I actually start running ad campaigns? Is there a way to test the tracking of purchases in real-time to ensure that all data is correctly transmitted to Google Ads and Analytics?

3. Best Practices: Does anyone have experience with this integration and can share best practices or tips, particularly regarding verifying tracking data or avoiding common pitfalls?

I want to make sure I'm doing everything correctly before investing money into ad campaigns and would greatly appreciate advice or guidance from the community.

Thank you in advance!

Shopify's Checkout Extensibility isn't mandatory until August 2025 but you can get your Google Ads conversion tracking set up now. I had a meeting with the Google Tag Team because I had a client prematurely upgrade their account and didn't tell me, severing the purchase conversion action that is the primary optimization source for the account.

Below is the code they gave me to replace it, insert it in Shopify under Settings > Customer Events. Create a custom pixel, swap out CONVERSIONID (leave the AW- prefix) and CONVERSIONLABEL in the code below with the data for your conversion action. When you're done, hit "save" in the top right corner, then click "connect." Also make sure to remove the previous conversion tracking code under Checkout > Additional Scripts if that's what you're currently using.

This is only set up to fire on a purchase completion, but it works for me and passes dynamic revenue + enhanced conversion parameters.

//gtag starts here
const script = document.createElement('script');
script.setAttribute('src', 'https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=AW-CONVERSIONID');
script.setAttribute('async', '');
document.head.appendChild(script);

window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
gtag('js', new Date());
gtag('config', 'AW-CONVERSIONID');
//gtag ends here

//ec + purchase code starts here
analytics.subscribe("checkout_completed", (event) => {
  gtag('set', 'user_data', {
    "email": event.data.checkout.email,
    "phone_number": event.data.checkout.phone
  });
  gtag('event', 'conversion', {
    'send_to': 'AW-CONVERSIONID/CONVERSIONLABEL',
    'value': event.data.checkout.totalPrice.amount,
    'transaction_id': event.data.checkout.order.id,
    'currency': event.data.checkout.currencyCode
  });
});