New retail clients will sometimes say that not all Paypal conversions are getting recorded in Google Analytics and Adwords. The missing conversion data is the revenue of the sale- or even just the confirmation of the sale.
The reason for this is that Paypal like other payment processors gives the buyer the option to return to the seller’s website- or to remain on the third party domain.
Paypal cover the steps for setting up auto-redirects back to the 1st party domain website. https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/mer/express_return_summary-outside
It is imperative to make sure Paypal settings include an auto-return. Not just to your website- but specifically to the order receipt page on your website that contains the Google Analytics e-commerce code.
The order receipt page contains the e-commerce tracking code for Google Analytics, Adwords or Google Tag Manager.
If revenue tracking and shopping cart functionality are not available on your website- the redirect needs to be the destination URL page for a completed goal. See our article on how to setup How to Setup Goals in Google Analytics for more details.
Takeaway
Most PPC services have conversion tracking including Google Ads, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Microsoft Bing Ads, Pinterest etc- as well as Google Analytics itself. So making sure Paypal transactions are recorded correctly will help you measure, report and improve marketing ROI of all of your campaigns.
