Recently, we discussed the importance of having tracking in place for your eCommerce business and how that data can help you take things to the next level. But how do you actually track all of this information? Your website won’t just record all of this automatically — you need to install a Google Analytics code on your site so that it captures the data you need about your product sales and your customers.
Here, we’ll go through the basics of adding Analytics to your site and what exactly you can learn from using it.
First, if you don’t already have one, you’ll need to sign up for a Google Analytics (GA) account. This is free, so there’s no reason not to start using it right away. Once you complete the registration process, you’ll be given a unique code to install on your site. That code will go in the header of your website. Some eCommerce platforms, like Shopify, may also have a section in the CMS where you can paste the code.
Now, you can log in to your GA account, and you should be able to see that it is tracking data from your website. And boy, is there a lot of data.
There are five main sets of data available to you from the dashboard:
Do you feel like you’re missing out on the feeling of watching customers enter your store and browse for items? Now you can imagine that you’re sitting behind the counter by looking at the Real-Time dashboard. This can be a good way to check that the code that you implemented is tracking correctly, or to monitor traffic during a promotion that you’re running so you can see how effective it is.
Who exactly is coming to your store? By configuring audiences, you can get general information about shoppers, or you can get very granular, with information about their location, browser, demographics, and even their interests.
How did your customers find you? The Acquisition dashboard will let you know whether people came to your website through a web search, a social media site, your email marketing, or another source.
What do visitors do once they land on your site? What pages do they visit, and how long do they spend there? This information can help you identify pages that might be offering a bad user experience.
What action did your customers ultimately take? The standard conversions section lets you track goals, such as signing up for a newsletter. There is an additional tab specific to eCommerce tracking that lets you see the things that you really want to know — what your customers are buying, how much they’re spending per order, what your overall sales are, and more.
If the basics just don’t cut it for you, then you’ll want to check out Enhanced eCommerce. This additional tracking gives you even more information to help understand your customers and their behavior. By enabling this feature, you can learn more about conversion rates, shopping behavior, checkout behavior (including abandoned carts), how your products are performing.
Today, you can find out so much about your customers, their behaviors, which products they prefer, when they like to buy them, and much more. While this information is certainly helpful to inform your business and marketing decisions, it can also cease to be valuable if you have so much data that you can’t interpret it for your needs.
We’ve barely scratched the surface of everything that GA has to offer. Enlisting the help of an expert in eCommerce marketing means that you can spend less time staring at dashboards and metrics and more time implementing changes to improve sales. Contact us today to find out how your website is performing and how we can take it to the next level.
About the Author:
Sabrina Lopez is the Managing Editor at 1SEO whose passion for grammar is surpassed only by her love for her avian companions. When she is not chasing her tiny human offspring around, she may be found basking in the purple glow of her PC or watching a fantasy flick with her husband.
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