Google Analytics 4 Integration Overview

Measure Every Moment
of the Customer Journey.

Run Free fires 10 structured GA4 events across the complete purchase funnel — in real time, from both the browser and via Google Tag Manager — giving you complete ecommerce visibility, Google Ads integration, and predictive analytics out of the box.

10 Behavioral Events
18+ Ecommerce Data Fields
2 Tracking Methods
GTM + Direct gtag

The Foundation of Everything Measurable

GA4 is the industry standard for ecommerce measurement — and it's only as powerful as the data you feed it. Run Free implements the complete GA4 ecommerce event schema: every product view, every cart action, every checkout step, and every purchase lands in GA4 with fully structured item arrays and transaction data.

That's not the end of the story. Run Free's GA4 integration is also the data pipeline that powers your Google Ads campaigns — enabling dynamic remarketing, smart bidding, and audience targeting that improves automatically as your store collects more data.

Part A

Events We Send to GA4

Nine behavioral events, firing in real time. Each one follows GA4's native ecommerce schema and is ready to use in reports, audiences, and Google Ads the moment it lands.

Purchase Funnel
🛍️

view_item

Fires on every product page load

The first signal in the purchase funnel. Every product page view lands in GA4 with a fully structured item object — giving you product-level reporting, browse-to-purchase conversion rates, and the behavioral data GA4 needs to build top-of-funnel remarketing audiences.

Data captured
items[].id items[].name items[].brand items[].category items[].variant items[].list_name items[].list_position items[].quantity items[].price
🛒

add_to_cart

Fires when any item is added to the cart

High-intent cart activity with full item context. GA4 receives the complete product record — including brand, category, color variant, and list position — enabling add-to-cart rate reports by brand and category, and powering mid-funnel remarketing audiences in Google Ads.

Data captured
items[].id items[].name items[].brand items[].category items[].variant items[].list_name items[].list_position items[].quantity items[].price
↩️

remove_from_cart

Fires when an item is removed from the cart

Tracks every cart removal with the same structured item data as add_to_cart. This signal enables friction analysis — if a specific SKU is removed at a high rate relative to its add-to-cart rate, that's a product page or pricing problem GA4 can surface clearly in your funnel reports.

Data captured
items[].id items[].name items[].brand items[].category items[].variant items[].list_name items[].list_position items[].quantity items[].price
🧾

begin_checkout

Fires when a customer starts checkout

The critical mid-to-bottom funnel step. Run Free sends every cart item with full product details plus the store affiliation and any coupon code present — giving GA4 everything it needs to measure checkout initiation rates and build bottom-of-funnel cart abandoner audiences for Google Ads remarketing.

Data captured
coupon items[].id items[].name items[].brand items[].category items[].variant items[].list_name items[].list_position items[].quantity items[].price items[].affiliation

purchase

Fires on every completed order

The richest and most important event. Run Free sends the complete order record — transaction ID, revenue, tax, shipping, coupon code, and every line item with full product details. This is your ground truth for ROAS reporting, conversion value optimization, and smart bidding in Google Ads. Fired from both server and browser to prevent missed conversions.

Data captured
transaction_id value currency tax shipping coupon items[].id items[].name items[].brand items[].category items[].variant items[].quantity items[].price items[].affiliation
Wishlist Activity
❤️

add_to_wishlist

Fires when a customer saves a product

Wishlist saves are among the clearest purchase-intent signals available. Run Free sends a fully structured item object using GA4's native schema — including the customer's member ID where available — enabling wishlist-saver audiences in Google Ads and intent-based reporting in the GA4 explore section.

Data captured
currency value user_id items[].item_id items[].item_name items[].item_brand items[].item_category items[].item_variant items[].item_list_name items[].item_list_id items[].price items[].quantity
🗑️

remove_from_wishlist

Fires when a customer removes a saved product

Keeps GA4's behavioral data clean. When a customer removes a wishlist item, GA4 receives the same structured product data as the add event — enabling accurate wishlist engagement analysis and ensuring remarketing audiences built from wishlist activity reflect current intent, not stale saves.

Data captured
currency value user_id items[].item_id items[].item_name items[].item_brand items[].item_category items[].item_variant items[].price items[].quantity
Search Behavior
🔍

search_all_clicked

Fires on every site search submission

Captures exactly what customers search for on your store. The raw query lands in GA4, enabling search term reports that reveal what customers want that you may not be surfacing clearly — high-volume zero-results searches are missed revenue opportunities waiting to be fixed.

Data captured
query
🔎

search_overlay_opened

Fires when the search overlay is opened

Tracks engagement with the search experience itself — not just completed searches. When paired with search_all_clicked, you can measure the click-to-search conversion rate of the overlay, identify sessions where customers opened search but abandoned it, and benchmark search engagement across traffic sources.

Data captured
(engagement event)
✏️

autocorrect_suggested

Fires when the search overlay suggests a spelling correction

Run Free's search overlay includes a built-in autocorrect engine. When a customer's query returns no results and a spelling correction is detected, GA4 receives both the original misspelling and the suggested correction. This event reveals which search terms are confusing enough to mistype — a signal for improving product naming and discoverability.

Data captured
original suggestion
How Events Are Delivered

⚡ Two Ways to Track — Both Active at Once

Run Free supports two independent GA4 delivery methods, and both can run simultaneously. Each store is configured for the method that fits their stack, or both for maximum reliability.

GTM Container

Google Tag Manager

Run Free pushes all events to window.dataLayer in GA4-compatible format. Your GTM container picks them up, giving your team full control over tags, triggers, and firing rules without touching code. Ideal for stores that already use GTM for other tags.

Direct gtag()

Native GA4 Script

For stores without GTM, Run Free calls gtag('event', ...) directly. Events fire immediately on user action with no container processing delay. The measurement ID is store-configurable and can be swapped without a code deployment.

🛡️

Purchase Events Fire From Both Layers

Run Free fires the purchase event from both the server and the browser. If a customer's browser closes mid-page, blocks JavaScript, or loses their connection after payment completes, the server-side event still lands in GA4. A unique order ID on every event prevents double-counting — so conversion data stays accurate regardless of which layer fires first.

📊

Native Ecommerce Schema — No Custom Mapping Required

Every event Run Free sends uses GA4's official ecommerce event names and item parameter schema. There is no custom dimension mapping, no translation layer, and nothing to configure in GA4. Events appear immediately in the Monetization → Ecommerce Purchases report the moment they start flowing.

📉

The Complete Purchase Funnel — Measured.

Run Free instruments every step of the conversion funnel with GA4 events. GA4's Funnel Exploration report can visualize exactly where customers drop off — and by how much — giving you the data to fix the right problem first.

🛍️
view_item
Product View

Customer sees the product page

🛒
add_to_cart
Add to Cart

Item added to shopping cart

🧾
begin_checkout
Checkout Start

Customer proceeds to checkout

purchase
Purchase

Order confirmed and paid

Part B

What This Data Powers

GA4 is measurement infrastructure — and measurement infrastructure powers everything downstream. Here is what Run Free's event data unlocks across reporting, advertising, and machine learning.

🎯

Google Ads Integration

Turn behavioral data into ad campaigns that pay for themselves

Dynamic Remarketing

GA4 passes structured item data — product ID, price, category — directly to Google Ads for dynamic remarketing. Customers who viewed Brooks Ghost shoes see Brooks Ghost ads. Customers who abandoned a specific cart see that exact cart in Google Shopping. No manual product feed configuration required.

view_item + add_to_cart + begin_checkout

Smart Bidding & Conversion Value Optimization

When purchase events flow into GA4 with real revenue values, Google Ads can optimize bids for Target ROAS — automatically raising bids for high-value customer segments and reducing spend on low-value traffic. The more purchase data flows, the smarter bidding gets.

purchase (value + transaction_id)

Audience Suppression

GA4 audiences built from purchase events can be synced to Google Ads to suppress ads to recent buyers — preventing wasted spend on customers who just converted. Pair with a cross-sell audience to replace the suppression with a complementary product campaign instead.

purchase

Wishlist Saver Audiences

Customers who save a product to their wishlist but don't buy are among the most cost-effective audiences to retarget — they've already signaled intent explicitly. GA4 captures this with add_to_wishlist and syncs it to Google Ads automatically.

add_to_wishlist → no purchase
📈

Ecommerce Reporting

Answer the questions every store owner actually needs answered

Revenue & Transaction Reports

Every order that flows through Run Free lands in GA4's Monetization reports with full transaction detail. Revenue by channel, by brand, by category, by traffic source — all available out of the box, with no custom configuration.

purchase

Top Products & Item Performance

Because every purchase event includes structured item arrays with brand and category, GA4 can rank your top products, top brands, and top categories by revenue, quantity, and view-to-purchase rate — giving your buying team real data to work from.

view_item + purchase (items[])

Checkout Funnel Analysis

GA4's Funnel Exploration report maps the view → add_to_cart → begin_checkout → purchase journey for your store, measuring exactly how many customers drop off at each step and what percentage of those who start checkout complete it.

All four funnel events

Coupon & Discount Attribution

The coupon parameter on both begin_checkout and purchase events lets GA4 report on which discount codes are being applied and which ones actually convert — so you can measure the true cost and lift of every promotion you run.

begin_checkout + purchase (coupon)
👥

Audience Building

Precise segments for campaigns, analysis, and personalization

Category & Brand Affinity Audiences

GA4 can build audiences from the brand and category fields on view_item and purchase events. "Customers who viewed HOKA products but haven't bought HOKA" is a one-click audience ready to sync to Google Ads — no manual tagging or segmentation work required.

view_item + purchase (brand / category)

Purchase Intent Audiences

Stack behavioral events to build high-intent audiences: customers who viewed a product, added it to cart, reached checkout, but didn't purchase. These bottom-of-funnel abandoners have the highest conversion probability of any retargeting audience and the best ROAS in Google Ads.

begin_checkout → no purchase

Search Interest Audiences

The search_all_clicked event captures query terms and can be used to build audiences around search intent. Customers who searched for trail shoes are a materially different segment from customers who searched for nutrition — and can be messaged accordingly in remarketing.

search_all_clicked (query)
🔗

Attribution & Analysis

Understand which channels and campaigns actually drive revenue

Multi-Touch Attribution

GA4's data-driven attribution model analyzes all the touchpoints in each customer's path to purchase — organic search, email, paid ads, direct — and assigns fractional credit based on actual contribution. Far more accurate than last-click, and it runs automatically on Run Free's purchase data.

purchase (transaction_id + value)

Channel Revenue Reporting

With purchase values flowing from Run Free, GA4's Traffic Acquisition and Acquisition Overview reports show revenue by channel — email, organic, paid search, social, direct — so you can see not just which channels drive traffic, but which channels drive buyers.

purchase (value)

BigQuery Export

GA4's native BigQuery integration exports all event data — including Run Free's structured item arrays and transaction records — to a data warehouse. This enables custom SQL queries, cohort analysis, LTV modeling, and BI tool connections that go far beyond what GA4's UI alone can surface.

All events → BigQuery

Search Term Analysis

The search_all_clicked event feeds GA4 with raw query data. Combine it with subsequent purchase events in an Exploration report to measure which search terms lead to revenue — and which ones result in exits or zero-result pages that need fixing.

search_all_clicked → purchase
🤖

GA4 Predictive Audiences — Unlocked

GA4's machine learning requires purchase event data to activate predictive capabilities. Once Run Free's purchase events reach the minimum data threshold in your property, GA4 automatically computes predictive metrics for every user — enabling audiences that act before customers make a decision, not after.

Purchase Probability

GA4 predicts the likelihood that each user will make a purchase in the next 7 days based on their behavioral history. Build a "high purchase probability" audience in Google Ads and bid aggressively on users who are already on the verge of converting — before a competitor gets there first.

Churn Probability

GA4 identifies users who were previously active but are predicted to stop engaging. Sync this audience to a win-back campaign and intercept churning customers with a retargeting ad while they're still within reach — far cheaper than acquiring a new customer to replace them.

Revenue Prediction

GA4 predicts the expected revenue contribution from each active user over the next 28 days. Use this to segment your audience by predicted value — separate high-LTV prospects from casual browsers and allocate ad budget accordingly, rather than treating every user equally.

Predictive Audiences in Google Ads

All three predictive metrics can be published directly to Google Ads as audiences with a single toggle in GA4. Smart Bidding can then optimize campaigns specifically for users most likely to purchase — raising bids where it matters and reducing waste everywhere else.

Bonus

Out-of-the-Box Reports, Ready Day One

Because Run Free uses GA4's native event schema, these reports populate automatically — no custom setup, no event mapping, no waiting.

💰

Ecommerce Purchases

Revenue, transactions, and average order value — broken down by product, brand, and category. The canonical ecommerce report, populated automatically by Run Free's purchase events.

→ purchase (items[] + value)
🛒

Cart-to-Purchase Rate

What percentage of customers who add to cart actually complete a purchase? GA4 calculates this automatically from add_to_cart and purchase events — one of the most actionable metrics in any store.

→ add_to_cart + purchase
📦

Top Products by Revenue

Rank every SKU in your catalog by units sold, revenue generated, and view-to-purchase conversion rate — automatically, without a single custom configuration in GA4.

→ view_item + purchase (items[].id)
🔎

Site Search Analysis

See exactly what customers search for, how often, and whether those searches lead to purchases. Find the high-volume queries that aren't converting and fix the product pages or catalog gaps behind them.

→ search_all_clicked (query)
📉

Checkout Funnel Exploration

A step-by-step visualization of where customers drop off between product view and completed purchase. Identify the exact step with the worst falloff rate and focus optimization effort there first.

→ view_item → add_to_cart → begin_checkout → purchase
🏷️

Discount Code Performance

Which coupon codes are being applied, which ones convert, and what revenue they're driving — all from the coupon parameter Run Free sends on begin_checkout and purchase events.

→ begin_checkout + purchase (coupon)
❤️

Wishlist Engagement

How many customers save items? Which products get wishlisted most? And what percentage of wishlist savers convert to buyers? All answerable with GA4 Exploration using add_to_wishlist and purchase events.

→ add_to_wishlist + purchase
📡

Channel Revenue Attribution

Which marketing channels drive revenue — not just sessions. With purchase values flowing from Run Free, GA4's acquisition reports show the true revenue contribution of every channel, campaign, and source/medium combination.

→ purchase (value + session source)

Measurement Is the Multiplier.

You can't optimize what you can't measure — and most stores are flying blind. Run Free's GA4 integration tracks every meaningful moment in the customer journey with structured, schema-compliant data that feeds GA4 reports, powers Google Ads smart bidding, activates predictive audiences, and exports to BigQuery for deeper analysis. All from a single integration that's live from day one.