view_promotion / select_promotion

Promotion tracking measures the performance of internal marketing — your homepage hero banners, seasonal sale modules, featured collection widgets, and “top picks” recommendations. view_promotion fires when a promotion is visible to the user. select_promotion fires when they click it.

Together, these two events give you impression-to-click rates for every internal promotion. Which banner drives the most clicks? Which creative slot position performs best? Promotion tracking answers these without needing a separate A/B testing tool for basic performance measurement.

view_promotion: when to fire

Fire view_promotion when:

• A promotional banner, hero image, or featured content block becomes visible to the user
• A recommendation widget with promotional intent renders on the page
• A “Featured Products” or “Sale” module is in the viewport

Like view_item_list, fire once per promotion render — not on scroll events. If you have multiple promotions on a page, fire a separate event for each promotion (or batch multiple promotions in one event if they all appear simultaneously).

view_promotion: complete dataLayer push

// Multiple promotions visible on the homepage
dataLayer.push({ ecommerce: null });

dataLayer.push({
  event: 'view_promotion',
  ecommerce: {
    items: [
      {
        item_id: 'SKU-001-BLK',
        item_name: 'Classic Leather Jacket',
        item_brand: 'Heritage Co.',
        item_category: 'Apparel',
        promotion_id: 'PROMO_SUMMER24',
        promotion_name: 'Summer Sale 2024',
        creative_name: 'summer_sale_hero_v2',
        creative_slot: 'homepage_hero'
      },
      {
        item_id: 'SKU-023-NAV',
        item_name: 'Wool Peacoat',
        item_brand: 'Heritage Co.',
        item_category: 'Apparel',
        promotion_id: 'PROMO_NEW_ARRIVALS',
        promotion_name: 'New Arrivals - Fall Collection',
        creative_name: 'new_arrivals_banner_a',
        creative_slot: 'homepage_secondary'
      },
      {
        item_id: 'SKU-088-BLK',
        item_name: 'Leather Card Wallet',
        item_brand: 'Heritage Co.',
        item_category: 'Accessories',
        promotion_id: 'PROMO_ACCESSORIES',
        promotion_name: 'Accessories Sale',
        creative_name: 'accessories_grid_module',
        creative_slot: 'homepage_tertiary'
      }
    ]
  }
});

select_promotion: when to fire

Fire select_promotion when:

• A user clicks on a promotional banner, hero image, or featured module
• A user clicks a “Shop Now” CTA within a promotion
• A user clicks a featured product within a promotional widget

select_promotion should fire on the source page (where the promotion is), before navigation to the destination.

select_promotion: complete dataLayer push

// User clicks the summer sale hero banner
dataLayer.push({ ecommerce: null });

dataLayer.push({
  event: 'select_promotion',
  ecommerce: {
    items: [
      {
        item_id: 'SKU-001-BLK',
        item_name: 'Classic Leather Jacket',
        item_brand: 'Heritage Co.',
        item_category: 'Apparel',
        promotion_id: 'PROMO_SUMMER24',
        promotion_name: 'Summer Sale 2024',
        creative_name: 'summer_sale_hero_v2',
        creative_slot: 'homepage_hero'
      }
    ]
  }
});

Event schema

Event Schema view_promotion / select_promotion

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
event	string	Required	"view_promotion" or "select_promotion"
ecommerce.items[]	Array<Item>	Required	Items associated with the promotion. Each item carries promotion metadata.
items[].item_id	string	Optional	SKU of the featured product, if the promotion is product-specific.
items[].item_name	string	Optional	Name of the featured product.
items[].promotion_id	string	Optional	Unique identifier for the promotion campaign. e.g., PROMO_SUMMER24.
items[].promotion_name	string	Optional	Human-readable promotion name. e.g., "Summer Sale 2024".
items[].creative_name	string	Optional	The specific creative asset name. Use versioning: hero_banner_v1 vs hero_banner_v2.
items[].creative_slot	string	Optional	The position or slot where the creative appears. e.g., homepage_hero, pdp_sidebar.
items[].index	number	Optional	Position of the promotion in a list of promotions (0-based).

Promotion parameters explained

promotion_id vs. promotion_name

promotion_id is the machine-readable identifier — what your CMS or campaign management tool uses internally. promotion_name is what humans call the campaign. Both should be consistent throughout the campaign lifecycle.

promotion_id: 'SUMMER2024_SALE',
promotion_name: 'Summer Sale 2024'

creative_name: version your creatives

When you A/B test banner designs or run multiple creative versions of the same campaign, use creative_name to distinguish them. This is where the value of promotion tracking becomes clear — you can compare click rates between hero_v1 and hero_v2 in GA4 reports.

creative_name: 'summer_sale_hero_v1'   // control
creative_name: 'summer_sale_hero_v2'   // test variant

creative_slot: the position identifier

creative_slot identifies where on the page the promotion lives, independent of what’s in it. Slots are positions — the hero slot, the secondary banner slot, the sidebar widget slot. The same slot might run different promotions over time, but its position in the page layout stays constant.

creative_slot: 'homepage_hero'
creative_slot: 'homepage_secondary_banner'
creative_slot: 'category_page_top'
creative_slot: 'pdp_related_products'
creative_slot: 'cart_cross_sell'

GTM configuration

1. Create two Custom Event triggers. CE - view_promotion for view_promotion, and CE - select_promotion for select_promotion.

2. Create Data Layer Variables for ecommerce.items (shared between both events).

3. Create two GA4 Event tags — one for each event name. Both use Send Ecommerce data.

4. Test in Preview mode. Navigate to a page with promotions. Confirm view_promotion fires when the promotion is visible. Click a promotion and confirm select_promotion fires with matching promotion parameters.

Common mistakes

Not linking view to click with consistent IDs. If view_promotion pushes promotion_id: 'PROMO_SUMMER24' but select_promotion pushes promotion_id: 'promo_summer24' (different case) or an entirely different ID, GA4 cannot connect the view to the click. Be exact.

Tracking image loads as promotions. Not every hero image is a promotion. view_promotion is for deliberate marketing content — campaigns with defined objectives. A decorative image is not a promotion.

Using the same creative_slot for different positions. If your “homepage hero” slot sometimes renders full-width and sometimes half-width depending on the campaign, use distinct slot names: homepage_hero_fullwidth vs homepage_hero_halfwidth. Mixing layouts under one slot name makes position analysis meaningless.

view_item_list Product list impressions — the complement to promotion tracking for organic product discovery.

Ecommerce Overview The full GA4 ecommerce event specification.

select_item Product click tracking — similar pattern to select_promotion.