the recent upgrade to Google Analytics 4, the free analytics tool has become easier to use and more accurate. However, for the average store owner, Google Analytics has a pretty steep learning curve. So to help you get started, we’ve put together a comprehensive guide covering everything you need to know to set up Google Analytics for your online store , the essential reports you should be checking regularly as an ecommerce entrepreneur , and a few other benefits to help you get the most out of the latest version of Google Analytics for ecommerce.
Contents hide
1 Why You Need Google Analytics to Grow Your Ecommerce Store
2 How to Set Up Google Analytics for Your Ecommerce Website
2.1 Sign up for Google Analytics
2.2 Create an account and your first property
2.3 Install the Google Analytics tag on your website
2.4 Setting up Google Analytics for Enhanced E-Commerce
3 5 Essential Google Analytics Reports for Ecommerce
3.1 Real-time report
3.2 Acquisition reports
3.3 Interaction reports
3.4 E-Commerce Purchase Report
3.5 Attribution Reports
4 Compare different groups of visitors with Google Analytics segments
5 Point Your Growth in the Right Direction with Google Analytics
5.1 Related publications:
Why You Need Google Analytics to Grow Your E-Commerce Store
If you ran a retail store, you would be able to see firsthand how many customers were walking through your store and what products they were browsing, adding to carts, or putting on shelves. Setting up eCommerce analytics and tracking the relevant KPIs not only gives you access to this information, but also helps you answer more detailed questions about visitor behavior, such as:
Which products and pages are the most visited on your site?
On average, how much time do people spend on a particular page?
Which pages of your website generate the most revenue for your business?
How valuable is search engine traffic compared to social media advertising?
Which marketing campaigns or channels are bringing in low-quality traffic that leaves without further action?
How many of your visitors are new and regular?
What percentage of visitors add an item to their cart and what percentage of them actually complete the checkout ?
What devices do people most often view your website on ?
The answers to these questions and more can be found in Google Analytics and used in your marketing strategy , website design, product development, pricing strategy, copywriting, and business decisions big and small. Imagine you've been driving traffic to your product page for a month now, but you still haven't made a single sale . You want to know why so you can make the necessary changes.
Without Google Analytics, you don’t know where to start. Is your product page not enticing people to click the “Add to Cart” button? Or is an unexpected shipping cost at checkout scaring people away?
With Google Analytics, you can see that most of your traffic is coming from Facebook ads and has a low engagement rate . Now you can narrow down the suspects — maybe you’re driving the wrong traffic, or maybe you need to warm people up more with your ad creative or product description? Google Analytics allows you to make informed decisions about your business. Otherwise, you’re just guessing in the dark. “As an ecommerce business, I use Google Analytics to analyze the sales funnel we built for Bull & Cleaver. It helped us diagnose “leaks” in the experience and fix them.”
How to Set Up Google Analytics for Your Ecommerce Website
Setting up Google Analytics takes just a few clicks, but the exact steps depend on your site's platform. If you're using Shopify , getting started is simple: create a new Google Analytics account, copy the tracking code , and paste it into the Google Analytics field on the settings page.
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Sign up for Google Analytics
To get started with Google Analytics, you'll first need a free Google account. If you already have a Gmail account, you can use that. If not, create your Google account, then go to Google Analytics and click the button in the top right corner to get started.
Create an account and your first property
If you're starting from scratch, you'll be prompted to create an account after signing into Google Analytics . This will create a new profile to track your eCommerce site's analytics . Most people use their name or the name of their business .
Click Next to add your first property to your account. If you're not starting from scratch and already have a Google Analytics account, you can create a new property by selecting Admin , then +Create Property in the Property column.
Note: You can track multiple “properties” under a single account. Say you want to track your online store , mobile app , and blog — you can do this by creating additional properties under the same account for each platform. And if you need to come back to them later, you can always access your accounts and properties at any time in the Admin section of Google Analytics by clicking the gear icon in the bottom left corner.
