Add the payment company's domain to the referral exclusion list in Universal Analytics, or add the ignored referrer line to the older code, then place a test order from a tagged link and check its source.

Every sale from the same referrer

The owner of an online shop opens the ecommerce figures by source for June. Almost every sale is credited to one referring site: the company that takes the shop's card payments.

The newsletter brought hundreds of visits and, by this report, sold nothing. The search ads look the same. The payment company looks like the best source of business the shop has.

The sales are real, and so are the visits. The report has simply attached each sale to the last place the buyer came from, which was the payment page.

What happens on the way back

When a buyer presses the pay button, the shop sends them to a page run by the payment company. They enter their card details there, and the payment page sends them back to the shop's receipt page.

That return arrives like any other visit from another site, with the payment page named as the referrer. To Analytics, a new referrer means a new source, so it starts a new visit.

The ecommerce code on the receipt page then records the sale in that new visit, credited to the payment company, while the visit that came from the newsletter ends without a sale.

What the report now gets wrong

One misplaced credit spreads through every report that uses sources:

The second is the costly one. An owner judging ads by this report may cut the very campaign that brought the buyers.

The fix in Universal Analytics

Universal Analytics has a referral exclusion list in the property settings. Domains on that list are not treated as referrers, so a return from one of them continues the visit instead of starting another.

Add the payment company's domain there. The buyer's return to the receipt page then belongs to the visit that began with the newsletter, and the sale is credited to it.

Check that the shop's own domain is on the list as well, so a visitor moving between its pages is never counted as arriving from the shop itself.

The fix in the older code

Sites still running the older tracking code have no such list in the settings. The same result takes one extra line in the code on every page.

That line uses the ignored referrer command, _addIgnoredRef, with the payment company's domain, and sits above the line that records the page view. Analytics then treats the return as a direct visit.

A direct visit never replaces a source Analytics already holds for that visitor, so the sale stays with the newsletter or the ad that brought them.

A worked example

A gliding club at a small valley airfield sells introductory flights to the public, and gift certificates for them, through its website. Payment is taken on a page run by a payment company.

In June the club sent its newsletter to past visitors and ran a small ad on Facebook. Analytics credited almost every certificate sold to the payment company's domain.

The site used Universal Analytics, and the payment company was not on the exclusion list. Each buyer came back to the receipt page as a new visit from a referral.

The club added the payment company's two domains to the list, tagged the newsletter's links, and set the payment page to send buyers back to the receipt page on its own.

A volunteer then bought a certificate through a tagged test link and refunded it. The sale appeared under the newsletter, showing that the return no longer started a fresh visit.

Finding every domain involved

A payment company may use more than one domain: one for its main site, another for the payment page, and sometimes a card issuer's verification page in between.

Open the referrals report, set it to show transactions, and note every domain that receives credit for sales. Each one belongs on the list or in the line.

Check again after the payment company changes anything, and whenever the shop adds a second way to pay. A new payment option usually brings a new domain with it.

Testing the change

Make a link to the shop with campaign tags, such as a source of test and a medium of email, and open it in a fresh browser window.

Buy something small, pay on the payment page, and return to the receipt. The real-time report should show the visit under the test campaign throughout.

The next day, check that the sale appears in the ecommerce report under that campaign, then refund it and note the test in a comment so nobody counts it later.

Past months stay as they were

The exclusion works from the day it is added. Earlier months still credit the payment company, and Analytics will not reprocess them.

Add an annotation on the date of the change, so anyone comparing months later understands why the payment company disappeared as a source.

While you are there, check that buyers come back at all. Some payment pages show their own receipt and offer only a link back; buyers who never press it never reach the code that records the sale.

The counter-case

A shop whose payment form sits on its own pages, passing the card details to the processor in the background, never sends buyers away and has nothing to exclude.

A shop with a single source of sales, such as one newsletter and nothing else, may also know where its buyers come from without any report.

Most small shops send buyers to a payment page, though, and spend money on more than one source. For them, a setting that takes minutes is what makes the sales report worth reading.

Credit back to the right source

  1. Open the referrals report and find the payment domains.
  2. Add them to the referral exclusion list.
  3. Or add the ignored referrer line to the older code.
  4. Tag the links in newsletters and ads.
  5. Set the payment page to return buyers on its own.
  6. Test with a purchase from a tagged link.
  7. Annotate the date of the change.

Step six proves the fix. A test purchase that starts from a tagged link and ends under that tag shows the visit survived the trip to the payment page.

Another way the receipt page can mislead the sales figures, by counting one order twice, is traced in orders counted twice when the receipt page reloads.

Frequently asked questions

Why does Analytics credit sales to the payment company?

The buyer returns from the payment page to the receipt page, and Analytics treats that return as a new visit from a referral, crediting the sale to it.

What is the referral exclusion list?

A setting in Universal Analytics properties listing domains that should not count as referrers. A return from one of them continues the visit instead of starting a new one.

What if the site uses the older tracking code?

Add the ignored referrer command, with the payment company's domain, above the line that records the page view. The return then counts as direct and the original source stays.

Will this correct last month's figures?

No. The change applies from the day it is made, so earlier months still credit the payment company. Add an annotation so later readers know why.

How do I test the fix?

Start from a link carrying campaign tags, buy something small through the payment page, return to the receipt and check that the sale appears under that campaign.

Does the payment page need any change?

Set it to return buyers to your receipt page automatically if it can. A buyer who never comes back never triggers the code that records the sale.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Payment company your top source of sales?

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