The ecommerce funnel every store should track
Ask most store owners what they track and they say "sales". That is the last step. Without the steps before it, you can see that you are losing buyers but never where. GA4 has a full ecommerce funnel built in, and almost nobody completes it.
The events that make the funnel
- view_item and view_item_list: product and listing views.
- add_to_cart and view_cart: intent building.
- begin_checkout: the critical, most-missed step.
- add_shipping_info / add_payment_info: the final friction points.
- purchase: with value, currency, transaction_id and items.
Fire these with proper item data and GA4 gives you a real drop-off funnel, plus product performance you cannot get any other way.
Why each step pays for itself
A healthy view-to-cart but a cliff at begin_checkout points at shipping shock or a checkout bug, a specific, fixable thing. Without that step tracked, your funnel shows an impossible cliff and you guess. The difference between "we lose people somewhere" and "we lose 40% at shipping info" is the difference between guessing and fixing.
The catch
Implementing the full funnel means a clean data layer and events that fire reliably through a hosted checkout, which is exactly where most DIY setups fall over. Get it right once and it becomes the most useful report in your business.
Want us to check your tracking in 10 seconds?
Pop in your domain and we will show you what is firing, what is not, and where data is leaking. Free, no signup.
Check my tracking freeGet a plain-English audit
We check your live GA4, Google Tag Manager and consent setup by hand and tell you exactly what is wrong. The audit comes off any build.
See how it works & pricingDatahound are analytics and ad-tracking specialists. We fix broken GA4, Google Tag Manager and server-side tracking so every sale, form and call gets counted. Back to datahound.agency · All tracking guides · Your GA4 funnel says everyone skips a step