Why Everyone Should Set up GA4, Google Ads, and FB CAPI via GTM Only?

⚡ Why You Should Avoid Third-party Plugin Integration?

When you install GA4 /GTM via a plugin, CDP, or some other third-party tool (aka non-standard implementation), you are likely to experience a lifetime of misery.

Following are the top 8 limitations of non-standard implementations:

1) Unassigned traffic.

A non-standard implementation can lead to certain misconfigurations or incomplete implementations.

For example,
If certain parameters necessary for proper attribution (such as utm_source, utm_medium, etc.) are not correctly captured or passed to GA4, traffic can end up being reported as “unassigned”.

2) Missing events and parameters.

When you use a non-standard implementation, there is always a higher chance of missing important events or parameters.

For example, the ‘session_start’ event could be missing (a pretty common issue with non-standard implementations).

3) A non-standard implementation may not support all of the features of GA4.

It might not fully capture all users’ interactions or might not send data in the format GA4 expects, resulting in gaps in your data.

And worst part is you may never know unless you can spot the issue.

One good example is ‘Shopify GA4 native integration’, which can’t track certain e-commerce events.

4) Inflated session and user counts and session attribution issues.

When third-party tools are used for integrating GA4 but fail to align with GA4’s cookie handling and domain specifications, it can lead to inflated session counts, inflated user counts and misattribution of traffic sources.

5) Inconsistent tracking.

If a third-party tool sets a cookie with an incorrect path, it might restrict the cookie’s availability to certain parts of the website only.

This restriction can lead to inconsistent tracking as users navigate different sections of your website, breaking the continuity of sessions and user tracking.

Third-party tools may handle session starts and ends differently than standard GA4 implementation, which can lead to session attribution issues.

6) A non-standard implementation could add latency to your data collection process. So, your data appears even slower than normal in your reports.

7) A non-standard implementation may be incompatible with certain browsers and devices, which could result in data not being tracked correctly.

This is because the native tracking is designed to work with a wide range of browsers and devices, while a non-standard implementation may not be.