How to create purchases by device report in GA4

Server-side ecommerce GA4 tracking has many advantages but also a few limitations. One of them is that Google does not allow the information about the device to be sent from a server.

So GA4 reports using purchase events to see which device type/model/operating system performs better when it comes to purchasing on an ecommerce store account can't work.

We created a workaround that enables you to surface the data about the device used to perform the purchase.

After reading this article you’ll be able to create a report like the one below:

Create an exploration

To build an exploration like the one above, we start in the Exploration section of GA4 - create a Blank exploration by clicking on the colourful plus sign:

Next we need to add dimensions and metrics to the report, by clicking on the proper plus icons.

Let's add "Page path and query string" as the dimension, and "Active Users" as the metric.

tip:

Pro tip: Once the dimensions and metrics show up in the left-hand side, in "Variables" tab, just double-click on them and GA4 will automatically add them to your report.

Filtering Thank You Page views

In the screenshot above we see ALL the pageviews so the third step is to add a filter that would limit our report to show ONLY thank you pageviews.

Scroll the "Tab settings" column all the way down and setup a filter based on "Page path & query" dimension - the operator should be "contains" and the value should be thank_you.

Please note that in this article thank_you page has always been written with an underscore: that's the exact phrase contained in the Shopify URL when someone purchases so beware NOT to type thank-you or thankyou in the filter.

Now is the time to add device specific dimensions

• Device Category
• Device Brand
• Mobile Model (don't worry, it shows desktop models as well)
• Operating system with version

We advise you to try different variations as we noticed that NOT all dimension combinations work properly across different GA4 properties.

So if you see a notorious “There’s no data for this combination of dimensions and metrics” - don’t give up!

After you add the desired metrics, double click them so they get added to your report:

Cleaning up the table

Don’t worry if your table turns into an UGLY one, like the one above - you are on the right path!

The problem is that the table is still starting with “Page path” dimension so all we need to do is to remove it in the “Tab settings” column.

NB: Make sure NOT to remove it from the “Variables” column!

And voila!. If you diligently replicated all the described steps, you’ll be seeing a nice-looking report (or Exploration - sorry GA!) like this:

Happy exploring!