Track online guest behavior and checkout conversions

Tracking online guest behavior and checkout conversions is key to understanding how guests interact with your website and optimizing the checkout process. By implementing these tracking methods, you can gather valuable data to improve the guest experience online, improve your marketing strategies and boost sales.

This guide explains how to set up progressive checkouts to track online guest behavior, share conversion events with digital advertising tools and measure overall online checkout performance.

What you can do

• ROLLER automatically tracks common guest behaviors (events) in progressive checkouts and allows you to connect Google Analytics 4 (GA4), Facebook and Instagram (Meta pixel), and TikTok (TikTok pixel) in Venue Manager for detailed event tracking in these tools. Read on to learn how.
• For advanced tracking needs, such as integrating with other third-party marketing and automation tools, Google Tag Manager (GTM) is recommended (available with Premium and above plans or an HQ Pro plan). Read on to learn how. 

Automatic event tracking and monitoring

Progressive checkouts natively track the following guest actions (events):

• Page views: When a guest views a page.
• View item list: When a guest views a list of items.
• View item: When a guest views the details of a specific product.
• Add to cart: When a guest adds an item to their shopping cart.
• Begin checkout: When a guest starts the checkout process.
• Checkout steps: Progress through various stages of the checkout process.
• Remove from cart: When a guest removes an item from their cart.
• Purchase: When a guest completes a purchase.

Guest actions on progressive checkouts are categorized as either an "event" or "event hit". Keep in mind that certain tracking tools may not support all events.

Once you connect Google Analytics 4 (GA4), Meta pixel (Facebook and Instagram), or the TikTok pixel in your checkout website settings from Venue Manager, these events are automatically sent to the connected tools for monitoring and analysis.

Advanced tracking with Google Tag Manager

In most cases, the events we natively track in progressive checkouts and send to ROLLER-supported tools will suffice. For more advanced tracking needs, Google Tag Manager (GTM) can be useful.

GTM allows you to create new, granular events for unique business requirements or third-party integrations. While GTM handles data tracking and collection, it doesn't store the data; instead, it sends it to tools like GA4 for storage, analysis and reporting. Additionally, GTM can route existing events tracked by ROLLER to third-party tools like Klaviyo. 

Read on to learn how to connect GTM in progressive checkout settings from Venue Manager.

Set up Google Analytics checkout tracking

Google Analytics is a free service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic, enabling you to monitor and measure guest behavior and the overall performance of your checkouts. Find out more about how Google Analytics works

To enable Google Analytics checkout tracking:

1. Create and configure a Google Analytics 4 account. Refer to this guide [GA4] Set up Analytics for a website and/or app.
2. Find and copy your GA4 measurement ID. Refer to this guide Find your “G-” ID.
3. Log in to Venue Manager.
4. Go to Apps > Progressive checkout > Settings.
5. Paste the GA4 measurement ID from step 2 into the field.
6. Select Activate to save.

Note for GTM users: If you're configuring Google Tag Manager for a GA4 property, and you're configuring any GA4 Config Tags, you will need to make sure you do not re-use the same Property ID / Measurement ID as placed in the progressive checkout settings. This helps prevent data duplication and tracking issues.

Set up Google Analytics with cross-domain tracking

Google Analytics is an advanced tool, and aspects of web analytics can be highly technical. While ROLLER does not provide direct support for Google Analytics, we recommend configuring cross-domain tracking for optimal performance.

If your website and progressive checkouts (roller.app) are hosted on different domains, cross-domain tracking is required to monitor users across both domains. This includes embedded checkouts routing via roller.app if custom domains are not implemented.

However, if you're using ROLLER custom checkout domains, you won't need to set up cross-domain tracking. 

To set up cross-domain tracking:

• Refer to the guide Set up cross-domain measurement.
• Make sure that you include the ROLLER domain as shown below, then add another rule for your own domain in the match type settings.

Google Ads

Progressive checkouts is not integrated with Google Ads as this data sharing can be instrumented via Google Analytics account linking. Follow the guide Link Google Ads and Analytics to learn more.

Meta Pixel (Facebook and Instagram)

The Meta Pixel allows you to measure the effectiveness of your advertising by understanding the actions people take on your checkout, ensuring your ads are shown to the right people on Facebook and Instagram.

Progressive checkouts can be directly integrated with the Meta Pixel. Once enabled in Venue Manager, ROLLER injects the pixel code into your progressive checkouts and sends all Meta supported events directly to the pixel. From your Meta account, you'll be able to monitor results. 

To enable the Meta Pixel on your checkout:

1. Create and configure a Meta Pixel. Refer to this guide How to setup and install a Meta pixel.
2. Find and copy your Meta Pixel ID.
3. Log in to Venue Manager.
4. Go to Apps > Progressive checkout > Settings.
5. Paste the Meta Pixel ID from step 2 into the field.
6. Click Activate to save.

TikTok Pixel

The TikTok Pixel is a measurement tool that tracks your TikTok ads' impact on your checkout. This integration enables you to monitor sales, user activity and find the right audience for your ads.

Progressive checkouts is directly integrated with the TikTok Pixel. ROLLER injects the pixel code into your checkout and sends all TikTok supported events directly to the pixel.

To enable the TikTok Pixel on your checkout:

1. Create and configure a TikTok Pixel. Refer to this guide Get Started with Pixel.
2. Find and copy your TikTok Pixel ID.
3. Log in to Venue Manager.
4. Go to Apps > Progressive checkout > Settings.
5. Paste the TikTok Pixel ID from step 2 into the field.
6. Click Activate to save.

Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a powerful tag management system used for more advanced custom tagging of your progressive checkouts.

Tracking tags are snippets of code that collect data and send it to third-party services like Google Analytics (GA), Meta and other marketing and analytics platforms. While GTM is used to manage and deploy web tracking tags, GA analyzes the data collected from those tags to understand user behavior and checkout performance.

GTM acts as the "brain" or tracking engine, passing your website and checkout analytics into tracking programs like GA4. All tags in GTM are stored in a "container," reducing the complexity of managing multiple tracking codes.

While you may initially need a developer to add the GTM code to your website and help with creating a container, once it's set up, you can manage these tags without further altering the underlying code.

By linking GTM with GA4 (or other tools), you can track metrics such as:

• Conversion rates
• Marketing campaign performance
• Purchase funnel
• Cart abandonment

To enable the Google Tag Manager on your progressive checkout:

1. Create and configure a GTM Container. Refer to this guide Set up and install Tag Manager.
2. Find and copy your GTM container ID.
3. Log in to Venue Manager.
4. Go to Apps > Progressive checkout > Settings.
5. Paste the GTM container ID from step 2 into the field.
6. Click Activate to save.

FAQs

What are natively tracked events in ROLLER's progressive checkouts?

Natively tracked events are specific user interactions automatically tracked within ROLLER's progressive checkouts. These include common guest actions such as page views, item views, adding items to the cart, beginning the checkout process, completing checkout steps, removing items from the cart and making a purchase.

How do you track and monitor the natively tracked events n progressive checkouts?

ROLLER simplifies event tracking by natively tracking the most common events in progressive checkouts and allowing you to directly integrate with Google Analytics 4 (GA4), Meta Pixel (Facebook and Instagram) and TikTok Pixel.

You only need to set up your account in these platforms, then input the tracking code into the relevant progressive checkout website tracking settings in Venue Manager. ROLLER handles the rest, sending the natively tracked events directly to these tools without requiring Google Tag Manager (GTM).

When might I need to use GTM with ROLLER?

If you're on a Premium or above plan (or HQ Pro plan), you can use GTM for more advanced tag tracking needs and integrating tracked events with other third-party marketing and automation platforms, such as Klaviyo.

Can I embed a custom script or pixel on our checkout?

Yes, you can embed custom scripts or pixels such as Hotjar or Microsoft Ads using GTM. This allows you to add additional tracking tags and send data to other third-party tools beyond what ROLLER natively supports. You'll need to be on a Premium and above plan (or HQ Pro plan) to do this and help from a web developer or web analytics expert to achieve this. 

How accurate is the data tracked by ROLLER's progressive checkouts?

Browsers and users are applying tracking restrictions to protect privacy. This means that Google Analytics cannot track transactions/users in some instances.

Configuring server-side tracking via Google Tag Manager can improve data capture.

I'm not using a custom domain, but all my events are coming from my main domain?

If you're not using a custom checkout domain, you shouldn't see a lot of traffic attributed to roller.app as the source/medium.

If you are seeing a lot of data attributed to the roller.app domain, it means your cross domain tracking is not working correctly. Refer to the instructions in this guide above to configure cross domain tracking.

Can we connect online purchase events to the Facebook Conversion API?

The Facebook conversion API is a backend solution to track conversions in Facebook. There are two ways to enable this:

1. Server-side tracking via Google Tag Manager
2. ROLLER webhooks. Refer to the guide How to connect your ROLLER purchase events to the Facebook Conversions API