Connect Google Analytics, the Meta Pixel and the Pinterest tag

Google Analytics 4 measures your visits and where they come from; the Meta Pixel is used to measure and target your Instagram and Facebook ads, and the Pinterest tag does the same for your Pinterest ads. All three are connected in the same place, Settings → Advanced, by pasting an ID: Winslor installs the code for you. Allow 5 minutes per tool.

Do you need Google Analytics?

For an online shop, it isn't essential: Winslor already shows the ‘Live’ panel on your dashboard, as well as ‘Where your visits come from’ and ‘Visits by device’ on the Analytics page. Google Analytics is still useful if you already use it, or to link your visits to your Google Ads campaigns.

For a restaurant, it is how you count visits to your menu: Winslor measures your orders and bookings, not views.

Connect Google Analytics 4

1. Go to analytics.google.com and sign in. If you don't have a Google Analytics account yet, create an account and a property.
2. Open Admin → Data collection and modification → Data Streams. If a ‘Web’ stream already exists for your site, open it and skip to step 4. Otherwise, create a ‘Web’ stream (on a property with no stream yet, the page offers ‘Web’ straight away).
3. Enter your site's URL: your custom domain if you have one, otherwise your .winslor.com subdomain. Give the stream a name, leave ‘Enhanced measurement’ on, then click ‘Create stream’.
4. The stream page opens: the ‘Measurement ID’ is shown under ‘Stream Details’. It starts with ‘G-’.
5. In your Winslor admin panel → Settings → Advanced, paste it into the ‘Google Analytics 4’ field, then save.

Don't paste the ‘gtag.js’ code snippet Google offers you: Winslor already installs it. Likewise, if Google asks you to set up ‘Consent Mode’, there's nothing to do: Winslor already passes on each visitor's choice from the cookie banner. On the other hand, don't turn enhanced measurement off: without it, Google would count little more than the landing page of each visit.

Connect the Meta Pixel

1. Open Events Manager with the account that manages your Facebook page or Instagram account.
2. Under ‘Data sources’, select your pixel (Meta sometimes calls it a ‘dataset’). If you don't have one, create one of type ‘Web’.
3. Copy its ID: a string of digits, shown in its settings.
4. In your Winslor admin panel → Settings → Advanced, paste it into the ‘Meta Pixel (Facebook / Instagram)’ field, then save.

Meta will offer to install the code manually or through a partner integration: ignore these options, the ID is enough. Winslor sends page views and the purchase steps described below, so you can measure the sales your ads bring in, retarget your visitors and optimise your campaigns for purchases. In your pixel’s settings, also check that automatic advanced matching is turned off: when on, it sends Meta the email addresses and names your customers type on your shop. Winslor deliberately sends no personal data.

Connect the Pinterest tag

1. Sign in to Pinterest Ads with your Pinterest Business account. There's no need to create a campaign: the tag is created without one.
2. Open the menu at the top left, then the Conversions page, in the business management section.
3. Start the setup and choose to install the Pinterest tag only. Avoid the option Pinterest recommends, which combines the Conversions API and the tag: it starts with a technical guide that Winslor doesn't need. If Pinterest then offers its integrations (Shopify, Google Tag Manager…), skip them and choose the manual setup.
4. The tag ID then appears at the top right of the page: a string of digits. Copy just this number.
5. In your Winslor admin panel → Settings → Advanced, paste it into the ‘Pinterest tag’ field, then save.

You can leave Pinterest's setup at this point: Winslor installs the base code and the event code for you. If you reach the automatic enhanced match step, leave it off: it sends your customers' email addresses to Pinterest, which Winslor doesn't do. Like the Meta Pixel, the tag only loads once the visitor has accepted marketing cookies. If Pinterest's interface has changed since, its help describes how to install the tag.

For a shop, the tag isn't enough to sell your catalogue on Pinterest: you also need to claim your website and add your product feed (see Sell on Pinterest, Google Shopping and Instagram).

Measure the sales from your ads

On top of page views, Winslor sends all three tools the purchase steps, with their amount: product page viewed, add to cart, checkout started and paid order. The one exception: Pinterest doesn't receive checkout started, because for Pinterest ‘checkout’ means a completed purchase. Google Ads, Meta and Pinterest can then measure what your campaigns earn and optimise them for purchases.

• The amount of a purchase is the value of the items, VAT included and shipping excluded, in the currency the customer paid in. All three tools receive the same amount.
• An order is only counted once, even if the customer reloads the confirmation page.
• For a restaurant, only orders are sent. An order to be paid on site counts as soon as it is placed.
• Like page views, these steps are only sent for visitors who have accepted the tool concerned. Winslor sends no personal data: no name, no email address.

For Google Ads: Google Analytics already treats a purchase (‘purchase’) as a key event. Link your Google Analytics property to your Google Ads account, then import this key event into Google Ads as a conversion. On the Meta side, there's nothing to set up: the purchase (‘Purchase’) appears in Events Manager and can be used as a conversion event for your campaigns. On the Pinterest side, there's nothing to set up either: the purchase (‘checkout’) appears in your ads account's conversions and can be used as a goal for your campaigns.

Check that it works

1. Open your shop (or your menu) in a private browsing window and click ‘Accept all’ in the cookie banner.
2. Google Analytics: in the ‘Realtime’ report, your visit appears within a minute.
3. Meta Pixel: in Events Manager, the ‘Test events’ tab shows a PageView event for each page you open.
4. Pinterest tag: on Pinterest's Conversions page, open the test events tool: each page you open appears there as ‘init’, marked as correctly received. The ‘Pinterest Tag Helper’ Chrome extension also lists them, page by page.
5. On a shop, add an item to the cart: the ‘add_to_cart’ event appears in the Google Analytics ‘Realtime’ report, ‘AddToCart’ in Meta's ‘Test events’, and ‘addtocart’ in Pinterest's test events.

Turn off your ad blocker while testing: it often blocks these tools, and you would wrongly conclude that nothing works.

Why these tools count fewer visitors than you really have

• Consent: Google Analytics only loads if the visitor accepts ‘Analytics’, and the Meta Pixel and the Pinterest tag only if they accept ‘Marketing’. This is a legal requirement in Europe, not a Winslor setting.
• Ad blockers, which often stop these tools from loading.
• Definitions differ from one tool to another (visit, user, session): compare trends, not exact figures.

Your orders, on the other hand, are always exact in Winslor: they don't depend on any cookie.

Frequently asked questions

Nothing shows up in Google Analytics.

• Check that the saved ID starts with ‘G-’.
• Accept analytics yourself in the cookie banner while testing.
• Turn off your ad blocker.
• Only the ‘Realtime’ report is immediate: standard reports take 24 to 48 hours to fill up.

I connected my domain name afterwards.

Nothing to change in Winslor. The address entered in the Google Analytics stream is for reference only: it doesn't filter tracking. You can update it in Google Analytics so that your reports show the right address.

Can I use Google Tag Manager?

No. Winslor installs the Google Analytics code directly: paste the G-… measurement ID, not a GTM-… container ID.

Meta recommends the Conversions API and advanced matching.

Winslor doesn’t use them: no personal data about your customers is sent to Meta. Your sales are still measured by the pixel, for visitors who have accepted marketing cookies; Meta sees fewer of them when an ad blocker stops the pixel from loading. You can ignore these recommendations, and the match quality score Meta shows alongside them.

Meta asks me to verify my domain.

It is no longer required to measure your sales or run your ads. On a .winslor.com address it isn’t possible: none of Meta’s methods (DNS record, file at the root of the site, tag in the page) is available there. With your own domain name, add the DNS record Meta gives you at your domain name provider. Meta may also require it to open a shop on Facebook or Instagram: you then need your own domain name.

Pinterest Tag Helper shows warnings.

• ‘More than one event was found for initialized’: your shop doesn't reload the page when a visitor moves from one page to another, and Winslor reports each new page to Pinterest. The extension therefore counts several initialisations: this is normal.
• ‘No enhanced match was found’: Winslor deliberately doesn't send your customers' email addresses to Pinterest.
• ‘Product Category is missing’: this field is optional. The sale is linked to your catalogue by the product ID, which is sent.

Pinterest shows several tags.

Each pass through Pinterest's setup can create a new tag. Keep in Winslor the one that receives your events; unused ones do no harm.