By Marc Alexander

For years, most Shopify stores tracked purchases by pasting code into the "additional scripts" box on the order confirmation page. That box is gone. On 26 August 2026, Shopify switched off the last of the old checkout scripts for stores not on Shopify Plus, a year after it did the same for Plus stores.

If your purchase tracking relied on that code, it may have stopped quietly. Sales still happen, but GA4, Google Ads or Meta stop hearing about some or all of them.

What changed.

  • Additional scripts and checkout.liquid no longer run on the Thank you and Order status pages. Plus stores lost them on 28 August 2025.
  • Script tags added by apps no longer load on those pages either: from 28 August 2025 for Plus stores, and from 26 August 2026 for everyone else.
  • The replacement is Customer Events. Shopify sends standard events, such as product_viewed, checkout_started and checkout_completed, to pixels that you add in the admin under Settings, then Customer events.

Two ways to track now.

Shopify's own apps. The Google & YouTube app and the Facebook & Instagram app connect GA4, Google Ads and Meta without any code. They're the quickest route and Shopify maintains them, but you get their events, their naming and their settings, and little say over either.

A custom pixel. You write code that listens to Shopify's events and sends them where you want, often through Google Tag Manager. It gives you control, but it runs in a sandbox, which brings limits that Shopify lists in its own guide:

  • Google Tag Assistant can't see tags loaded inside a custom pixel, so the usual way of checking tags doesn't work.
  • There's no ongoing dataLayer like the one a website builds up, so each event has to carry what it needs.
  • You can't add your own data to Shopify's standard events.
  • Some of GA4's automatic tracking, such as outbound link clicks, doesn't work from inside the sandbox.
  • Consent is your responsibility: the pixel has to follow the visitor's choice.

What usually goes wrong.

  1. Old code left in place, looking set up but no longer running, so nobody notices the gap.
  2. Purchases counted twice, when the app and a custom pixel both send them.
  3. Different values: one route sends the order total with sales tax and shipping, the other sends item value only. See US sales tax and shipping in GA4.
  4. Sessions broken at checkout, so purchases show up as direct traffic or referrals instead of the campaign that brought the customer.
  5. Consent ignored inside the pixel, while the storefront follows it.

What to check.

  1. Remove anything still sitting in the old additional scripts box, and list every app that sends purchase data.
  2. Choose one route for each platform, so every purchase is sent once.
  3. Place a test order and check it in GA4's DebugView and in each ad platform.
  4. Compare a week of GA4 purchases with Shopify's orders. A sudden drop around 26 August is the tell-tale sign.
  5. Check that campaign source survives checkout, and that the pixel respects consent.

Marc Alexander sets up GTM and GA4 for Shopify, including the checkout, for US stores. The GA4 mini audit shows whether your purchases are still arriving.