bluebarry search can send its searches and product clicks to your own Google Analytics 4 property. They use Google's own event names, so they show up in GA4's standard reports next to the rest of your store data. You only add your Measurement ID in bluebarry. Nothing changes in Google Tag Manager.
Before you start
- bluebarry search is live on your store, see Launch search on your store.
- You have your GA4 Measurement ID. It starts with G- and you find it in GA4 under Admin → Data streams, in your web stream.
Add your Measurement ID
- In bluebarry, go to Store data → Integrations and find the Google Analytics 4 card under Marketing & analytics.
- Enter your ID in Measurement ID, for example
G-AB12CD34EF. - Click Save.
From then on, searches and product clicks in bluebarry search go to that property. To stop, clear the field and click Save.
Events you get in GA4
| Event | Sent when |
|---|---|
| search | A shopper searched. A live search in the dropdown is sent once the shopper stops typing for 1.5 seconds. A search on the results page is sent right away. |
| select_item | A shopper opened a product from bluebarry search. |
| Parameter | On | What it holds |
|---|---|---|
| search_term | search, select_item | What the shopper typed. |
| search_results | search | How many products matched the search in total. |
| search_source | search | live_search for the dropdown while typing, results_page for the full results page. |
| item_list_name | select_item | Search suggestions for the compact dropdown, Search results for the results grid and the results page. |
| index | select_item | The product's position in the results, starting at 1. |
| item_id | select_item | Your store's own product ID, the same one your add_to_cart and purchase events use. |
- Typing “s”, “sh”, “shoe” counts as one search. Filtering, sorting or paging the same search is not sent again.
- bluebarry sends no add_to_cart of its own. Your store already sends one, and GA4 credits it to the select_item before it. The same goes for purchases.
- bluebarry sends no view_search_results either. GA4's enhanced measurement already sends it from the results page address, so it would be counted twice.
Register the search parameters in GA4
GA4 already knows search_term. To use search_source and search_results in your reports, register them once:
- In GA4, go to Admin → Data display → Custom definitions.
- Click Create custom dimension. Name it, for example “Search source”, set the scope to Event and enter
search_sourceas the event parameter. Save. - Open the Custom metrics tab and click Create custom metric. Name it, for example “Search results”, set the scope to Event and enter
search_resultsas the event parameter. Save.
GA4 only lists a parameter after it has seen it. If it is not in the list yet, type the name yourself. Reports show the new values from the moment you register them.
How the events reach GA4
bluebarry uses the Google tag that already runs on your store. When the page has none, for example because your Shopify store runs GA4 through Google's own app, bluebarry loads the Google tag itself. It sends no page view, so your page views are not counted twice.
Without a Measurement ID, the same events are pushed to the dataLayer only. A Google Tag Manager setup of your own can pick them up there.
Cookie consent
bluebarry follows your store's cookie consent. When a shopper has not allowed analytics, nothing is sent. bluebarry reads the consent from Shopify's customer privacy settings, the WP Consent API on WooCommerce, or your own consent check in the bluebarry script.
Test it
- Open your store in a normal browser window and accept analytics cookies.
- Search for a product, wait a moment, then open one of the results.
- In GA4, open the Realtime report or DebugView. You should see search and select_item arrive.
The search preview in Studio sends nothing, so test on your live store.
Good to know
- It works wherever bluebarry search runs: Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, CCV Shop and other stores.
- Testing bluebarry search against your store's own search? Each shopper's group goes to the same property as the user property bluebarry_search, see Test bluebarry search against your store's search.
- Quiz events go to GA4 through a Google Tag Manager container, see Send quiz data to Google Analytics 4.
- Search revenue, zero-result searches and top searches are also in bluebarry itself, see Read search analytics.