Merchants have many options for accepting online payments. “PayPal Payments Standard” is popular, but it can be challenging for Google Analytics to report the sale.
Using PayPal Payments Standard, customers leave the merchant’s website for their account at PayPal. After they complete payment, customers are redirected by PayPal back to the URL provided by the merchant.
There are two issues that can impact reporting in Google Analytics from this process.
First, the customer may not make it back to the merchant’s order confirmation page to trigger ecommerce reporting in Google Analytics. If the return URL is not set properly, the customer may not go back at all or may go back to the merchant’s home page or some other page. None will trigger the Google Analytics ecommerce code. A correct return URL will send the customer back to the order confirmation page, and the Google Analytics ecommerce code fires upon arrival.
This return URL is typically provided by the ecommerce platform in the payment settings. In PayPal, the return URL settings reside behind the gear icon in the top-right after logging in. – Read more
