In this guide
- Send purchase and lead first, then begin checkout, add to cart and view item.
- Use GA4 event names inside your site and map them to each platform's names in the server container.
- Every event needs a name, a time, an event ID and the parameters the platform expects.
"Which events should we send?" is the first design question of any server-side project. Too few and the platforms cannot learn. Too many and you pay for requests you do not use. This page gives a sensible list, a name mapping table and the fields each event needs. It builds on GA4 event tracking and Conversions APIs explained.
The core events
| Event | Why send it | Priority |
|---|---|---|
purchase | The conversion every platform optimises for | First |
generate_lead or lead | The conversion for lead generation | First |
begin_checkout | Mid-funnel signal and audience for abandoned checkouts | Second |
add_to_cart | Mid-funnel signal and retargeting audience | Second |
view_item | Top-funnel signal and product audiences | Third |
sign_up | Account creation, for stores with accounts | Third |
Orders from your store, back to the ad that earned them
Your store sends the order once. Open Tracked passes it on to each ad platform, cleaned and deduplicated.
Name mapping
| GA4 | Meta | TikTok | Google Ads |
|---|---|---|---|
purchase | Purchase | Purchase (earlier CompletePayment) | Conversion action for sales |
generate_lead | Lead | SubmitForm | Conversion action for leads |
begin_checkout | InitiateCheckout | InitiateCheckout | Optional |
add_to_cart | AddToCart | AddToCart | Optional |
view_item | ViewContent | ViewContent | Optional |
Names change when platforms update. Check each platform's current documentation.
Fields to include
| Field | Purchase | Lead | Others |
|---|---|---|---|
| Event ID | Yes (order number) | Yes (lead ID) | Yes |
| Value and currency | Yes | If you can estimate it | Optional |
| Items (ID, name, price, quantity) | Yes | No | Yes for product events |
| Customer data (hashed e-mail, phone) | Yes with consent | Yes with consent | If known |
| Page URL | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Ask Ari instead of digging through reports
Ari reads your tracking and ad data and answers in plain words.
What to leave out
- Events you will never use in a report or an audience.
- Personal data you do not need, such as full names where e-mail is enough.
- Duplicate events sent from two places without a shared ID.
- High-volume interaction events such as every scroll, unless you analyse them.
Check the plan against cost
Every event is a request to your server. A page view that sends five events is five requests. Hosting plans count requests, so a long event list on a busy store raises the plan you need. Open Tracked plans are sized by requests, from a free plan at 15,000 up to 20 million. See how much a server GTM costs.
How to roll the list out
Do not switch on every event on the same day. Start with the purchase and the lead, and test each one end to end: in Preview, in the platform's test tool and against a real order. When those two are stable for a week, add begin checkout and add to cart, then view item. This order also protects your request count, because you see what each group of events adds before you commit to a plan size.
Write down, for every event, where its parameters come from. A purchase usually reads from the data layer on the thank-you page, a lead from a form handler, a cart event from a cart script. When a number looks wrong later, this list tells you which piece of code to open first. Keep it with your container notes so it survives a change of team.
Terms you will see
- Event
- A recorded action, such as a purchase or a lead, with a name and parameters.
- Parameter
- A piece of information attached to an event, such as value or currency.
- Data layer
- The list on the page where your site pushes event data for the container to read.
- Standard event
- A platform's own named event that its systems understand.
- Event ID
- The value that lets a platform match a browser event with its server copy.
Finally, review the list every quarter. Shops add features, themes change and events drift. A purchase event that quietly lost its currency after a theme update will cost you more than any event you chose not to send. A short monthly check of the events in each platform’s test tool, with one real order, catches this before it affects bidding. Put the check in the calendar the day you launch.
A common question is whether to send the full funnel to every platform. You do not have to. Meta and TikTok use mid-funnel events such as add to cart and begin checkout to find people who are close to buying, so they are worth sending. Google Ads normally optimises for the conversion actions you define, so purchase and lead matter most there, and the funnel events are optional. GA4 wants the full set, because its reports depend on them. If you want to keep the request count down, send the full funnel to GA4 and Meta, and only the conversions to the others.
3 things to remember
Scroll and the points stack up.
Send purchase and lead first, then begin checkout, add to cart and view item.
Use GA4 event names inside your site and map them to each platform's names in the server container.
Every event needs a name, a time, an event ID and the parameters the platform expects.
Frequently asked questions
Which events should I send first?
Purchase for stores and lead for lead generation. They are the conversions platforms optimise for.
Should I send page views from the server?
Often yes for GA4, and for ad platforms when you want audiences. Watch the request count.
Do event names have to match between platforms?
No. Use one naming scheme on your site and map names in the server container.
How many events is too many?
Send what you use. Each event is a request, so your plan size depends on the list.
Do I need item data?
For product-level audiences and catalog ads, yes. For simple conversion tracking, value and currency are enough.
Do I need spreadsheets to read my results?
No. Once tracking is live, the Open Tracked analytics shows spend, revenue, ROAS and profit, and you can ask Ari, the built-in AI assistant, questions about your own numbers in plain words. Ari's allowance depends on your analytics plan.
Is Open Tracked different from Open Track or Open Space Track?
No. Open Tracked is the official name of our server-side tracking platform, and the website is opentracked.io. Many people search for it as Open Track, OpenTrack or Open Space Track. All of them lead to the same product: server-side Google Tag Manager hosting, first-party analytics and a CRM pipeline.
Fix your tracking at the source
Open Tracked hosts your server-side Tag Manager, keeps first-party cookies alive and shows what each ad is really worth.
The Open Tracked team
We build Open Tracked: server-side tracking hosting, analytics and the tools around them, for stores that spend on ads. Questions about this guide, or an idea for the next one?
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