"Missing from GA" could also be considered as "Not Sent to GA" or "JavaScript Blocked".
To understand why "Missing from GA" exists as a channel we first must understand how Google Analytics (GA) works.
When you setup your GA account you would have navigated to the Property tab in the Admin section of GA like this:
In your eCommerce platform you would have added the following Tracking Code with your custom Tracking ID for your site.
So how does GA work?
When a consumer comes to your website, the Javascript above runs on the browser that your visitor is using and this Javascript sends data to GA to track.
Javascript?
Yes GA is completely reliant on Javascript to capture your data so if Javascript cannot run (there are many reasons why Javascript might not run) then GA will not capture any data associated with that session or that order.
Causes of "Missing from GA" / Javascript not running
- Cookie blockers are enabled on the customer's browser or the customer is using a browser like Brave. These do not allow any Javascript to run and thus the data will never be sent to GA and as a result Daasity determine the channel as the data does not exist in GA.
- Orders are placed from the admin system by customer service, so there is no session on the website and thus no Javascript ran to capture the order.
- Subscription auto-reorders are automatically generated on a schedule, and therefore do not have a session associated with them.
- Retail POS orders do not have a site visit associated with them.
- Google Analytics cannot track sessions in Amazon and thus Amazon Orders will not have any GA data.
What should I expect?
You should expect somewhere between 3% and 8% of your orders to be missing from GA and as long as you are below 10% you are in good shape.
What if I have more missing?
If you have a missing rate that is much higher than 10% then it could be an issue with your setup. Learn more about why my missing from GA has increased