How to Track Abandoned Carts in Google Ads and GA4

Someone adds a product to their cart.

Then they leave.

No purchase.

That is not just a lost sale—it is valuable information about where potential customers are dropping out of your buying process.

By tracking cart and checkout activity, you can see how many people add products, how many begin checkout, and how many ultimately purchase.

Google Analytics 4 provides ecommerce events such as add_to_cart, begin_checkout, and purchase specifically for measuring this journey.

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What is an Abandoned Cart?

An abandoned cart is generally a shopping cart that contains products but does not result in a completed purchase.

For example:

Product viewed

↓

Product added to cart

↓

Checkout started

↓

❌ No purchase

That customer has abandoned the purchase journey.

How Do You Track Abandoned Carts?

The simplest approach is to track the major ecommerce events:

add_to_cart

↓

begin_checkout

↓

purchase

Google recommends these ecommerce events for measuring shopping behavior and purchase funnels.

You can then compare the number of users or events at each stage.

1. Track "Add to Cart"

When somebody adds a product to their cart, send the GA4:

add_to_cart

event.

Google's recommended ecommerce implementation allows you to send product information such as:

Product ID
Product name
Price
Quantity
Currency
Value

This tells you:

Someone showed enough interest to put this product in their cart.

2. Track "Begin Checkout"

When the customer actually starts the checkout process, send:

begin_checkout

This is a stronger buying signal than simply adding something to a cart.

Google specifically recommends begin_checkout as part of an ecommerce purchase funnel.

Your funnel could therefore look like:

100 Add to cart

↓

60 Begin checkout

↓

40 Purchase

That immediately tells you where customers are dropping out.

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3. Track the Purchase

When the transaction is successfully completed, send:

purchase

This should contain the appropriate transaction information, including a unique transaction_id, along with value, currency and purchased items. Google recommends the transaction ID to help avoid duplicate purchase events.

So your complete funnel becomes:

Add to cart

↓

Begin checkout

↓

Purchase

4. Calculate Your Abandoned Cart Rate

Here is a simple example.

Suppose:

1,000 people add products to their carts

and:

700 complete a purchase

Then:

300 did not purchase.

A simplified cart abandonment rate would be:

300 ÷ 1,000 × 100 = 30%

So:

Cart abandonment rate = 30%

Be careful about exactly what population you are using—cart abandonment can be defined differently depending on whether you measure from add_to_cart, view_cart, or begin_checkout.

5. Do not Confuse Cart Abandonment With Checkout Abandonment

These are slightly different.

Cart abandonment

Add to cart → No purchase

Checkout abandonment

Begin checkout → No purchase

For example:

1,000 add to cart

↓

600 begin checkout

↓

400 purchase

You could say:

400 of 1,000 carts resulted in purchases

and:

200 of 600 checkout starts did not result in purchases

Tracking both gives you a much clearer picture.

6. Find Where Customers Are Dropping Out

This is where abandoned-cart tracking becomes really useful.

Imagine:

Stage	Customers
Product views	10,000
Add to cart	1,000
Begin checkout	700
Purchase	400

You can immediately see that:

Many visitors never add anything.
Some cart users do not begin checkout.
Some checkout users do not complete the purchase.

That tells you where to investigate.

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7. What Causes Cart Abandonment?

Tracking tells you that people abandoned carts.

You then need to investigate why.

Common possibilities include:

Unexpected shipping costs
Complicated checkout
Limited payment options
Slow website
Mandatory account creation
Lack of trust
Coupon not working
Product price
Delivery concerns
Technical errors

Do not assume the cause from analytics alone.

Use your data to identify the stage where the problem occurs, then investigate that stage.

8. Can Google Ads Track Abandoned Carts?

Yes, but there is an important distinction.

You can measure ecommerce events and conversions through your Google measurement setup.

For example:

Add to cart

can be measured as an event.

But you generally do not want to make "Add to cart" your main purchase conversion if your actual business goal is completed sales.

A sensible setup for many ecommerce businesses would be:

Purchase → Primary conversion

Add to cart → Secondary/observational conversion

Begin checkout → Secondary/observational conversion

That lets you measure the funnel while keeping the campaign focused on actual purchases.

9. Can Abandoned Carts Be Used for Remarketing?

This is one of the most useful applications.

Imagine someone:

Views Product A

↓

Adds Product A to cart

↓

Does not purchase

You can potentially create an audience of users who showed this behavior and use appropriate remarketing or advertising strategies.

Google's ecommerce documentation also notes that recommended ecommerce events can support dynamic remarketing implementations, including product-specific advertising.

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10. What About Blogger or Blogspot?

This depends heavily on what your Blogspot website actually does.

If your Blogger site is only a blog with no shopping cart, there may be nothing to abandon.

For example:

Article → Advertisement → Exit

is not an abandoned cart.

But if your Blogspot site connects to an ecommerce system or shopping platform where visitors can add products to a cart, then ecommerce tracking can be implemented for those shopping actions.

In that situation, you would want the ecommerce platform to send the appropriate events to GA4.

11. How Do I See These Events in GA4?

After implementing the events, GA4 can receive events such as:

add_to_cart

begin_checkout

purchase

Google recommends checking incoming events using DebugView during setup and using the Realtime report to confirm events are arriving.

This is important.

Do not assume tracking works just because you installed a tag.

Test it.

12. What About Google Ads Conversion Tracking?

You can link GA4 with Google Ads and use appropriate Analytics data for advertising measurement. Google provides a Google Ads linking process through Admin → Product links → Google Ads links in Analytics.

But keep your conversion strategy clean.

For example:

Purchase → Primary

Add to cart → Secondary

Begin checkout → Secondary

That way, Google Ads knows that the final purchase is the main business outcome.

13. Should "Add to Cart" Be a Primary Conversion?

For most ecommerce businesses focused on completed sales:

I would generally keep Purchase as the primary conversion.

Why?

Because:

Add to cart ≠ Sale

Someone can add ₹10,000 worth of products to their cart and still spend:

₹0

So optimizing purely for add-to-cart actions can potentially encourage more people who add products without purchasing.

Your actual business objective should guide the setup.

14. A Better Ecommerce Measurement Funnel

A strong basic funnel is:

View product

↓

Add to cart

↓

View cart

↓

Begin checkout

↓

Add payment information

↓

Purchase

GA4 provides recommended ecommerce events for several of these stages, including view_cart, add_to_cart, begin_checkout, add_payment_info, and purchase.

This gives you much more information than simply tracking purchases.

15. Example of What Your Data Might Show

Suppose you have:

5,000 product views

↓

800 add to carts

↓

500 checkouts

↓

300 purchases

You could investigate:

Product → Cart

800 / 5,000 = 16%

Cart → Checkout

500 / 800 = 62.5%

Checkout → Purchase

300 / 500 = 60%

The last number tells you that 40% of checkout starters did not complete the purchase.

That is a potentially important area to investigate.

16. Do not Count Every Abandoned Cart as a Lost Customer

Someone may:

Add product today

↓

Leave

↓

Return tomorrow

↓

Purchase

So do not permanently classify someone as "lost" immediately after they leave.

Your reporting should account for the possibility of later conversion.

That is another reason why the relationship between:

add_to_cart → begin_checkout → purchase

is more useful than simply counting abandoned carts.

Final Thoughts

The best way to track abandoned carts is to build a proper ecommerce funnel.

Start with:

add_to_cart

↓

begin_checkout

↓

purchase

Then compare the stages to see where potential customers are disappearing. Google specifically recommends these events for ecommerce and purchase-funnel measurement.

For Google Ads, I would generally think of the setup as:

Purchase → Primary

Add to cart → Secondary

Begin checkout → Secondary

Then you can use the abandoned-cart audience and funnel information to improve your website and, where appropriate, your remarketing strategy.

Do not just ask, "How many people bought?" Ask, "How many people wanted to buy, where did they leave, and what can we do to bring the right ones back?"

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