The plugin implements Google’s ecommerce tracking code for ‘universal analytics’ as described here:
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/ecommerce
My understanding was that Google should take care of duplicates by itself since the plugin submits items based on their EDD transaction number. However, searching the web just now suggested that may not be the case.
I don’t seem to get any duplicates in my EDD sites though.
I’ll take a look if I get a chance soon, but in the meantime you could look at Yoast’s premium plugin for EDD/GA – which I believe now supports Universal Analytics. Let us know if that provides better protection against duplicates.
Another commercial plugin is available here: https://plugins.cminds.com/cm-google-analytics-ecommerce-tracking-for-easy-digital-downloads/
Just to be clear, I would never recommend using Google Analytics as an ‘accounting’ platform – but the ecommerce features might broadly help give some idea where your revenue comes from in aggregate.
I hope this helps, and I’ll let everyone know if I can find out more.
Yeah I found the same thing in my research. I was able to reverse the transactions by creating a page that set a negative value with the same transaction number, but it’s inconvenient. I don’t use GA for accounting but if I had $1,200 of sales it’s a little confusing to see $3,100 in my GA… makes it harder to track which campaigns are performing well.
The problem is that my purchase confirmation page also contains my download link and activation key, and I imagine some people are coming back to the page after downloading because they forgot to copy the key. If I fork your plugin and modify it to set a meta value after the tracking beacon has been sent for the first time, do you want me to send it to you? I’d rather spend the hour fixing your code than have to buy another plugin (plus I hate YOAST with a passion).
Thanks for your advice
My feeling is that the Javascript API isn’t quite enough here – it should be possible to fix duplicates as you say, but it can never be possible to ensure that the web browser ever fires the event even once in the first place, and there is no way of checking. A sever-side API where you send over the cookie tokens to match the user would be more robust.
Anyway, yes, if you can fix things then I’ll certainly aim to import your code. It would need to work in most setups of course, and not break e.g. if a site doesn’t happen to require user login or similar. I’m not sure if you mean to add meta values to the EDD payment object or to something else.
I look forward to seeing where you get to!
Email would be great – eddga@danlester.com
Thanks,
Dan
Ok, I just emailed you an updated plugin file.
Thanks for your contribution – I have added the duplicate prevention feature to version 1.2.
