GA4 and GTM

Hi everyone,

I've gone through the many posts about GTM implementation but I cannot find an answer to my question. I hope somebody can help me here 🙂

Since Squarespace does not support GTM implementation on the checkout page, I had used a little trick with UA so that Squarespace sends PageView and eCommerce, while still being able to use GTM for more behavioral tracking. Basically I have used a combination of GTM tracking and Squarespace tracking with gtag:

- I’ve added UA tracking code in Squarespace settings and enabled eCommerce tracking in my UA view

- and in my GTM container I’ve paused the tag that’s sending « Page View » data into UA so that I don’t get double data for Page View 

My question is the following: would I still be able to use that method with GA4? What Event would I need to disable/modify in my GTM container so that I don’t get double data for Page View?

Thanks a lot if anyone can help!

Quentin

What are you trying to do here, this is not clear?

GTM code will work across all SquareSpace pages except checkout because it doesn't fire GTM code on checkout page so no way to trigger anything there. Even if you could trigger it you would need to have the data layer variables setup to be able to capture and send the e-commerce value on the page view.

GA4 is event driven, while it does create a page view for tracking some base level metrics GA4 will capture those events that you setup to capture. We did this already with UA for the past 5 years, so the conversion path in not so hard.

If you explain in simple terms what you are trying to achieve, I can help you.

Have a good day.

Hi @GlynMusica,

Thank you for taking the time to answer.

What I am trying to do is the following: the client I am working with has their website on Squarespace, with a store. I would like to setup the GA4 configuration so that I am able to capture e-commerce values on the checkout page.

My understanding is that, as you mention, the GTM code will not fire on the checkout page. Which is why I want to implement GA4 using Squarespace built-in integration.

However, I would also like to be able to use GTM on the other pages for tracking other custom events, which is easier for me to use.

My plan was then to use the following configuration: implementing GA4 on Squarespace using the built-in integration (allowing me for e-commerce tracking on checkout page) but also implementing GTM code on all other pages. I assume that by doing so, I would get duplicate data for PageView and other enhanced measurements. Would I be able to work around that issue by disabling the “Send a page view event when this configuration loads » on the GA4 config tag in GTM? See picture below.

Would my setup work correctly using the method I just described?

I hope I managed to explain myself more clearly 🙂

Thanks a lot if you can help, that feels a bit complicated for me!

Quentin

I imagine you want to use GTM for event firing nothing more as it is way easier to do this inside GTM than via GA4 control panel and gives you the ability to reuse triggers for other analytics such as Facebook and simply more control.

We have done this in the past with UA and events where the UA configuration was easier for a web-agency to implement on the website and we wanted to track specific conversion events.

If you have a native configuration on SquareSpace that is doing the page view then don't fire it in the GTM and instead just trigger the event. ie disable the page view event. This will limit your problems. Also do a check on GA4 so you don't have double events firing.

Be sure that you are adding cross domain tracking values if the GTM tracking needs to go across other domains, don't just set it on GA4.

Shoudl be fine. Test...obviously!

Hi @GlynMusica,

Thank you for your reply.

Yes, this is exactly what I'm trying to do. Happy to read that this has been done before with UA! Thanks for confirming the way to avoid duplicated page view events. I wonder if doing so will also prevent duplication of the new enhanced measurements from GA4 (scroll, site search, outbound clicks...) or only of the pageview event? 

I should start implementing this setup next week, so I will let you know how it goes after I test it properly.

Thanks again!

Quentin

All good, I have found a solution.

In case anyone is experiencing the same issue, here is how to do it: remove the config tag in GTM altogether and just have the regular event tags where you manually set the measurement ID in them.

Works perfectly this way 🙂

On 7/3/2023 at 4:53 AM, quentinrave8 said:

All good, I have found a solution.

In case anyone is experiencing the same issue, here is how to do it: remove the config tag in GTM altogether and just have the regular event tags where you manually set the measurement ID in them.

Works perfectly this way 🙂

Are you saying use the GA4 events tags in GTM, but don't use the GA4 config tag in GTM?

And, did you keep the squarespace GA4 integration?

Hey Quentin, GTM and Squarespace can be a bit tricky to wrangle sometimes...

For GA4, you can still use a similar method to what you've been doing. In GTM, you'd want to manage the events carefully. Since GA4 has a different setup, you'd focus on disabling the "page_view" event that might be triggering double data. In GA4, this event is a part of the standard setup.

So, in your GTM container, maybe pause or disable the "page_view" event tag to prevent duplicate data. You'll still have the UA tracking code in Squarespace settings to handle PageView and eCommerce, but GTM can handle the behavioral tracking smoothly without the duplication.