Black Friday tracking check
Black Friday is Friday 27 November 2026 and Cyber Monday is Monday 30 November. Give us one store address and we run five checks and list what to fix before the sale.
Free, no sign-up. Reads the store's homepage and one product page, the way a search engine does. Works on any store, not just yours.
What the five checks cover
- Can your pixels see the sale? For the Meta Pixel, GA4 and Google Ads, whether each is installed in a way Shopify loads on checkout. A pixel in theme code alone sees browsing and misses every purchase, from the Shopify pixel checker.
- Will anything count twice? A pixel or GA4 tag installed by two routes, or two IDs for one job, so sale week numbers double or split.
- Is Tag Manager installed right? Placement, the dataLayer and the consent order, from the Tag Manager checker.
- Is consent handled before tags run? The banner, the consent mode default and anything loading above the banner, from the consent checker.
- Can shoppers see your prices in Google? The Product markup on your first product page, against what Google requires, from the product schema checker.
Do these by hand before the sale
Some things no outside check can see. They are the ones that cost the most when they break in sale week.
- Place a test order and watch it arrive. Open Test events in Meta Events Manager and DebugView or Realtime in GA4, then buy something. Each purchase should show once, with the right value. How to test a purchase in GA4 DebugView.
- Open Settings, then Customer events. Every pixel you rely on should be listed and connected. App pixels and custom pixels are the ones Shopify runs on checkout. Shopify's pixels overview says they load on the storefront, checkout, Thank you and Order status pages. Where consent is required, usually the UK and EEA, they run only once the visitor has given the permissions each pixel asks for.
- Check nothing still lives in Additional Scripts. Shopify says 26 August 2026 was the deadline to upgrade the Thank you and Order status pages, and stores that had not were upgraded automatically. Purchase tracking that sat in Additional Scripts on those pages has to be a custom pixel or an app now.
- Freeze theme changes in sale week. Publishing a new theme drops any tag that lived in the old one. If you must publish, run this check again straight after.
- Compare orders with purchases every morning. Shopify's order count against GA4 and Meta purchases for the day before. A gap that suddenly widens is a tag that broke. Why Shopify and GA4 purchases never match exactly.
Guardrails reads your public pages and tells you when a tag it has seen disappears or doubles up. It does not say whether a purchase fired. See Guardrails.
What this can and cannot tell you
What it reads
- The store's homepage, through the pixel, Tag Manager and consent checkers
- The first product page the homepage links to, through the product schema checker
- Which pixels Shopify loads on checkout, and which are in theme code only
- Tags installed twice, Tag Manager placement, consent order and Product markup
What it cannot see
Whether a purchase event fires on a real order, what value it sends, or what a custom pixel's code does. Server-side tracking such as the Conversions API, and anything inside a Tag Manager container, are out of reach too. It reads two pages, so a pixel added only on some pages may be missed. The hand checks above cover what it cannot.
Questions people ask
When is Black Friday 2026?
Black Friday is Friday 27 November 2026, the day after Thanksgiving in the US, and Cyber Monday is Monday 30 November 2026. Many stores start their sale earlier in November, so run the check before the first promotion goes out.
How do I check my Shopify tracking before Black Friday?
Run the check above for the parts that can be read from outside, then do the hand checks: a test order watched in Meta Test events and GA4 DebugView, a look at Customer events, and a daily comparison of orders against purchases during the sale.
Why does it say my pixel never sees a purchase?
Shopify does not load theme code on the checkout or the thank-you page. A pixel pasted into theme.liquid sees people browse but not buy. Install it through the matching Shopify app, such as Facebook & Instagram or Google & YouTube, or as a custom pixel.
Does this test a real purchase?
No. It reads the store's pages, so it shows how tracking is installed, not whether a purchase event fires. Only a test order, watched in each platform's own tools, shows that.
Can I run it on a client's store?
Yes. It reads public pages only, so it needs no login and no access, and it works on any store. An agency can run it on a client's store before a sale.