Want to learn how to add PayPal to your referral exclusion list in Google Analytics and prevent false attribution?
Why Google Analytics Lists PayPal As The Referrer – Explained
When using PayPal as your payment gateway, your customers leave your site and log on to PayPal’s website to make a payment. After they pay successfully, they return to your site, and the conversion is made.
Essentially, Google Analytics tracks the last website visited before conversion as the referral source for that conversion. Hence, it attributes PayPal as the referral source for the transaction. But, in reality, the referral source is where the customer found your website or product link, not PayPal.
Adding PayPal To Referral Exclusion List
To add PayPal to your referral exclusion list, you’ll need to click the Admin option at the bottom of the Analytics panel on the left.
Navigate to Data Stream option and select the desired Data Stream.
Upon clicking the Data Stream, you’ll see another window with further settings. Find Configure tag settings and click on it.
Within the tag settings click the “Show all” button and find “List unwanted referrals”
You can now add the Match Type and Domain for PayPal.com to your list of unwanted referrals.
Now that you’ve added PayPal to the referral exclusion list, Google Analytics will track the original referral sites and provide you with accurate referral traffic data.
Google Analytics normally takes 24-48 hours to apply an exclusion. You can check your referral source data again after that time to check if the exclusion list is working for you.