Tag Added Without Purchase

I haven’t come across a similar problem in past. So let’s take a closer look.

The only tags that are added should be the ‘Default Tags’ in the plugin settings and the product ActiveCampaign Tags for the products (or variations) on the order.

Now I’m hoping that you have the ‘Debug Log’ enabled under the plugin settings? If so the look at the debug log (under WooCommerce > Status > Logs) and select the log starting with the name ‘wc-ac-hook’ for the date you mention i.e. 2022-08-19.

You will need to have the ActiveCampaign ID to hand for the 3 contacts. You will then be able to check the debug log to see exactly which tags were added, exactly what time and to which contact ID, based on which order ID.

If you don’t have the debug log enabled then please enable it. It will be difficult to look into the problem further without the debug log, but at least it will be enabled for the next time this happens.

Anyway get back to me with a copy of the records from the debug log for one of the contacts and we’ll see what might have happened.

Hi Matthew,

Thank you for the quick reply. Unfortunately, we did not have ‘Debug Log’ enabled. It is enabled as of about 5 minutes ago. Is there any way to see how these contacts were tagged without the log?

You mentioned being able to see “exactly which tags were added, exactly what time and to which contact ID, based on which order ID” but this is information we already have access to through ActiveCampaign. We already know which tag was added was added to all three contacts and at what time — we are trying to determine why the tag was added as the contacts did not make any purchases on 8/19/22.

Hi Nicole,

ActiveCampaign does not know the exact sequence of events or reasons which are logged in the debug log – so the debug log will answer the ‘why’ question without me guessing.

Can you let me know what you have for the following two settings for wc-ac-hook plugin:

‘Add/Update Contact’ – is this checked/unchecked ?
‘Track Order Status’ – is this checked/unchecked ?

When I know this I can give you my best guess as to what happened.

Thanks
Matt

Hi Matthew,

‘Add/Update Contact’ is checked and ‘Track Order Status’ is unchecked. None of the three contacts placed any kind of order on 8/19/22—successful, failed, etc. According to ActiveCampaign, the product purchase tag was added to all three contacts, unprompted, around the exact same time on 8/19/22.

Yes as I say, I suspect we will have to wait for the next problem to occur, so that we have the debug log. Without the debug log and with the fact that product changes are not tracked (WP only keeps revisions for posts and pages) it is hard to establish the exact sequence of events and triggers, and to link them to the appropriate orders and products.

I have assumed that the ‘Signup to Marketing’ setting is ‘No’. Please let me know if this was incorrect (or if you have entered a ‘Marketing Form ID’);

With the ‘Add/Update Contact’ option checked the sync with ActiveCampaign should happen when an order is created with a status of ‘processing’ (usually at the point of customer checkout). The sync event is triggered by order status changes. So it is hard to see how a sync (to create a contact or add/remove tags) could happen without it being triggered by an order status change.

If there were no orders for these contacts then I’m struggling to explain what happened. The plugin must have an order from which it will get the email address to look up the contact on ActiveCampaign. The email address is the all important link. I can speculate that orders could have been deleted, or emails addresses changed on the order, but it is just guessing. The debug log would be the only definitive record since it will show the order ID that triggered the sync, the order status at the time, the timing to the second, the AC ID of the contact that matched the email on the order, and the exact tags added.

There will be some explanation! There always is but I’m not there yet.

Only last thing I can think of is to ask if you have a testing or staging environment? Testing orders or manually changing orders status on a testing environment will trigger a sync to ActiveCampaign. Long shot but worth asking I guess. Taking that point one step further I guess it would also be possible to mistakenly use the same API key if you had another web site that used the plugin but I’m clutching at straws here.

Let me know if any ideas come to mind based on what I’ve said above, otherwise I suggest we wait for the debug log. Check that everything that has been logged since you enabled it is as you would expect and then wait for a similar fault to occur.

Best regards,
Matt

Thank you for the information, Matt. We will keep an eye on things and reach back out if we encounter the issue again.