Cart-to-view rate in Google Analytics 4

Source: Google Analytics for Developers, API dimensions and metrics.

GA4 builds it from two ecommerce events: view_item when a product page shows, and add_to_cart when the product goes in the basket. Both must send the items array with the product's ID or name. Without it, GA4 cannot tie the add to the view.

It counts people, not events. A shopper who views a lamp four times and adds it once counts once on each side. Its sibling, purchase-to-view rate, divides buyers by viewers the same way.

Why it matters for Shopping ads

A Shopping or Performance Max click lands on a product page. Google Ads tells you the click happened and, later, whether a sale followed. It does not tell you where the shopper gave up. Cart-to-view rate isolates the product page: the step between the ad's promise and the basket.

If clicks are cheap but sales are poor, a low cart-to-view rate points at the page, the price or the stock. A healthy rate points further down, at checkout or delivery costs.

Worked example

A camping shop has 4,000 users who viewed a product in August and 360 who added one: 9.0%. In an exploration by item name, tents sit at 14% and stoves at 3%.

The stove pages show no delivery date and the price only below the fold. Shopping ads send them 900 clicks a month. The team adds the date and moves the price up. Stoves reach 7% in September, with the same ads.

1. In Google Analytics, open Explore and start a free-form exploration.
2. Add the Cart-to-view rate metric, and Item name or Item category as rows, to read it per product.
3. For the counts behind it, open Reports, then Monetization, then Ecommerce purchases: Items viewed and Items added to cart are columns.

Cart-to-view rate is in the Revenue and ecommerce group of Add a metric. Purchase-to-view rate, Items viewed and Add to carts sit beside it.

Optizads reads the property's own rate from Google Analytics for the days asked. It is a site total: for the split by product, use GA4's exploration.

To see the ad side of the same products, the Shopping products report template lists each product's clicks, cost, sales and return from Google Ads. Read both, and you know whether a weak product loses at the ad or on the page.

• Sending add_to_cart without the items array. The rate then reads near zero.
• Quick-add buttons on category pages that fire add_to_cart with no view_item. They push the rate up without any product page being seen.
• Comparing it with the Google Ads conversion rate of an add-to-cart action, which counts per click, not per person.
• Judging a month with a big promotion against a normal month. A discount lifts adds more than page quality does.

• Shopping campaign: A campaign that shows product ads with an image, a title and a price, built from your Merchant Center feed.
• Product feed: The file of your products, with titles, prices, images and attributes, that Merchant Center reads.
• Landing page: The page people reach after clicking an ad.

• Purchase revenue (GA4): Purchase revenue in Google Analytics 4 is the revenue from purchases on your site or app, minus refunds.
• Active users (GA4): Active users in Google Analytics 4 are the distinct people who had an engaged session on your site or app, or visited it for the first time, in the period.
• Session key event rate (GA4): Session key event rate in Google Analytics 4 is the share of sessions in which at least one key event happened.
• Value per conversion: Value per conversion is the average value of one conversion in Google Ads: conversion value divided by conversions.