To set up GA4 referral exclusion for PayPal, add paypal.com to the List unwanted referrals setting of your web data stream. In Admin, under Data collection and modification, click Data streams, select your web stream, click Configure tag settings, click Show all, open List unwanted referrals, add paypal.com as a condition, and click Save. GA4 then stops showing PayPal as the referral source for customers who return from checkout.
If GA4 is not yet connected to your site, I recommend the guide: How to Set Up Google Analytics 4 and Connect it to Your WordPress Site?.
Navigating the e-commerce analytics can sometimes feel daunting, especially when you notice oddities in your traffic sources. WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads stores often see payment gateway domains such as paypal.com listed as a referral source instead of the real traffic source.
If you accept payments through PayPal, GA4 can attribute transactions to PayPal instead of the source that brought the customer to your store. Excluding paypal.com from referrals returns credit to the original source.
This guide is for WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads store owners who see PayPal as a traffic source in GA4. It walks through the exclusion steps and explains what the setting changes in your reports.
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