Troubleshooting Your Xola - Google Analytics 4 Integration

This article details how to troubleshoot your Google Analytics 4 and Xola integration. Please know that your Google Analytics 4 tracking will not be 1:1 with Xola transactions. There are many factors on why this may happen, please read this article first if you are not seeing 1:1 conversions before you dive into troubleshooting.

What's covered in this article:

Button Implementation Checklist
- Check for Xola Checkout Javascript
- Xola Checkout Button Type
Tracking Code Installation
- Steps to Verify the Proper Code Installation
- Additional Tools
Attributions
Compare metrics of GA4 with Xola Reporting
- Things to Consider when Comparing Metrics of GA4 with Xola Reporting

Button Implementation Checklist

Before we can dive into troubleshooting you want to make sure your website has the proper button types installed on your webpage along with the Xola JavaScript.

Check for Xola's Checkout Javascript

For tracking to work properly, you must have the Xola JavaScript installed in the header or footer of your website. You can find this script in Step 1 from Settings > Button Code.

To check if you have this script installed on your webpage you can right-click on the page and select Inspect. Once the Elements tab has loaded press Command + F to prompt a search bar and type in checkout.js.

Xola Checkout Button Type

After verifying the installation of Xola javascript we can move onto to checking button types.

The two Xola button types that allow conversion tracking are Pop-Up and Embedded Checkout. You can verify these buttons simply by selecting the Book Now button and making note of the action. Does the checkout modal pop-up or does it stay embedded on the webpage? Either one of these two button types will work for tracking.

Note: It is very important to note that the URL option provided in Settings > Button Code does not function for conversion tracking if the Xola Javascript is not installed. In cases where the URL is used to install a button and the customer is redirected to a checkout page our analytics services cannot be tracked

Tracking Code Installation

Once you have confirmed that you have integrated Xola's JS code and have the appropriate button types, the next step is to ensure that your Google Analytics tracking code is correctly installed on your website. There are two common methods for implementing the tracking code:

GA4 Script: The GA4 script is directly pasted into the website's source code.
Google Tag Manager (GTM): Instead of pasting the GA4 script directly, GTM allows for centralized management of various tags and tracking codes, including Google Analytics.

Steps to Verify Proper Code Installation

To proceed with the verification process, follow these steps:

Step 1: Obtain the Tracking ID - either the GA4 property ID or the Google Tag Manager Container ID. The GA4 ID should look something like "G-XXXXXXXXXX," while the GTM ID should look like "GTM-XXXXXXXX."

Step 2: Verify Implementation - Regardless of the method you used, whether it's Google Tag Manager or the direct GA4 script, the tracking code must be placed within the header of your website (Google Tag Manager will also provide a <noscript> that will be installed in the body instead of the head). To ensure proper installation, follow these steps:

Right-click on the webpage and select View Page Source.
Once the page source loads select Command + F and search for the end </head> tag. Ensure that your Tracking ID appears anywhere between the opening <head> and closing </head> tags.

Note: Proper placement of tracking codes are very important. If the tracking code is placed anywhere below the end </head> tag conversions will not pass over.

Additional Tools

Google Tag Assistant: Another useful tool you can use when checking Property IDs is Google Tag Assistant. Read over this article for a more in-depth overview of Google Analytics Troubleshooting with Google Tag Assistant

Adwords: Click here to learn more about setting up and/or verifying your Adwords setup.

Attributions

In case attributions for conversions (source/medium, landing page, campaign etc.) are not coming in properly, check if xola.com is added to a cross-domain linking list.

First navigate to the Admin page in Ga4
Navigate to Data Streams
Select the stream with the correct measure ID and click on Configure Tag Settings
Navigate to Configure your Domains
Click on Add Condition and add xola.com and xola.app domains to the list, (your website should be there already as well, if not, it needs to be enabled)
In the event the attribution doesn’t improve after the above steps and there are a lot of self-referrals (<your_website> / referral set as ‘source/medium' for conversions), go to step 4 and click Show More, then click on List Unwanted Referrals, and add your URL along with xola.com and xola.app

Compare metrics of GA4 with Xola Reporting

If Xola JavaScript, proper button types, and tracking code are all installed correctly verify that your E-commerce purchases correlate with transactions shown in Xola reporting.

In the GA4 account, navigate to Reports > Monetization > Ecommerce Purchases. In the top right corner, set a date range and note the number of Purchases and revenue for the desired date range. When accounting for Items purchased, the amount calculated in E-Commerce purchases is accounting for Add-Ons and the number of Demographics purchased. Below is how GA4 calculates revenue in comparison to UA. In GA4, Item revenue = price x quantity without consideration of discount and taxes.
While in UA Revenue = Price x qty - discount amount + tax amount
To compare transactions we want to use Xola’s Reservations report with some filters applied. In Xola navigate to Reports > Custom Reports > Reservations.
- Set the date range in Xola to account for a 24-hour difference in comparison to the E-commerce purchase report. For example, if in the E-commerce Report, you set a date of Jan 3rd-10th in Xola you will want to set the date range to be Jan 2nd-9th. This will account for the time it takes to pass purchases from Xola to Google.
- Filter the Source column to include only Checkout. In this report, you can also filter Tags to exclude converted abandoned bookings. When abandoned bookings are converted, this means the guest completed the booking using the link provided via email thus not allowing the purchase to be tracked through the website.
- When calculating revenue in Xola reports, make sure to add the Base Amount + Add-ons columns to account for proper revenue.
The above steps will allow you to troubleshoot your integration by comparing metrics between Xola and GA4. The bullet points below are things to consider when comparing metrics.

Things to Consider when Comparing Metrics of GA4 with Xola Reporting

When comparing the two reports it is important to note that conversions will never be 1:1. Many factors come into play when tracking conversions including back office bookings, abandoned bookings conversions, mobile checkouts, direct checkout links, OTAs, AdBlockers, etc.

If there is a big discrepancy (over 15%) check for conversions by transaction type, by clicking on the ‘+' in the first column of the GA4 report and selecting ‘platform / device’ → 'device category’
In case there is a significantly lower number of desktop conversions compared to Xola reports, while mobile conversions seem ok, the most probable cause is that E-commerce events are not set up properly in the GTM container. Be sure to set up your GTM container to capture the desktop E-commerce purchases highlighted in this article.
In case both mobile and desktop conversions are significantly lower, or in case GTM events are not set up properly, contact our support team.
If channel attributions seem incorrect, verify that you have cross-domain tracking setup properly. Follow the steps highlighted in this article to set up cross-domain tracking.

Didn't Solve the Issue?

If you are still experiencing problems with your Google Analytics integration, please contact the customer support team at support@xola.com.