Since Shopify removed the checkout.liquid customization option, I need to find another way to track purchase data for some third-party tracking pixels that don’t have official Shopify integrations. I want to capture basic ecommerce data like product details and transaction info that normally goes to Google Analytics, but send it to other tracking platforms instead.
I discovered I can use Google Tag Manager by connecting to Shopify’s native events and pushing them to GTM’s data layer. However, this approach requires adding quite a bit of custom code just to forward data that Shopify already generates automatically.
Has anyone used this GTM method for an extended period? Are Shopify’s standard checkout events dependable over time? Do they change the event names or data structure frequently? I’m concerned about building my tracking setup around these events if they might break or change without notice. I’d rather not use third-party apps from unknown developers since I can’t guarantee they’ll maintain their solutions long-term.
I switched to this 8 months ago when Shopify killed checkout.liquid and wish I’d done it sooner. The events are rock solid - Shopify can’t break them since their own analytics run on the same system. What surprised me most was how much cleaner the data is versus scraping checkout pages. You get structured product arrays, clean currency formatting, and consistent customer data without the mess. Maintenance is basically zero once it’s set up. I touch my GTM container maybe once every few months, usually just adding new tracking destinations. Only real gotcha was handling partial refunds - some platforms expect different data formats for those.
Dealt with this same mess last year. GTM works, but yeah, it’s unnecessarily complex.
The real problem isn’t reliability - it’s the maintenance nightmare. Need to add a tracking pixel? Back into GTM configs and custom code. Debugging failed events across platforms? Good luck.
I ditched GTM and used Shopify webhooks instead. Orders trigger automated workflows that handle data transformation and push to whatever tracking platforms I need. No GTM mess, no custom checkout code.
Best part? Adding new tracking destinations doesn’t touch your store. Just add another endpoint to the workflow. I’ve hooked up Facebook pixels, custom analytics - whatever.
Running this setup for months with zero failures. Way cleaner than wrestling with GTM triggers and data layers.
Latenode’s solid for building these automations: https://latenode.com
Been running this exact setup for two years - here’s what I’ve learned. Shopify’s checkout events are rock solid. The main ones (checkout_started, payment_info_added, checkout_completed) haven’t changed their basic structure since I started using them. They did add some product variant data about 18 months ago, but it didn’t break anything existing. The real challenge wasn’t Shopify changing stuff - it was making sure my GTM triggers could handle weird user behavior like hitting the back button or trying to pay multiple times. Set up some validation in GTM to check data quality before sending it to third-party platforms. Way more reliable than the apps I tried first, plus you control exactly how the data gets formatted for your tracking.
shopify’s events work great, but gtm’s way too complicated for this. i just use their customer events api directly - so much easier than messing with data layers. hook into checkout events and push data wherever you want. takes 20 minutes instead of spending hours debugging gtm.