When attempting to optimise an eCommerce website, one of the most seemingly insurmountable challenges is boosting your conversion rate. Improving the number of sales you can achieve on your store is next to impossible if you don’t have accurate information about how much traffic your site is gaining, where the visitors are coming from, and which of your pages shoppers appear most (and least) drawn to.
Setting up Google Analytics is the simplest way to gain a world of insight into your eCommerce store so you can more effectively shift your strategy to meet the needs of your audience. All you need to begin the process of Google Analytics setup is a Gmail account and your Shopify admin information—two things you likely have on hand already.
Once you’ve effectively set up your Google Analytics account, you’ll be able to delve into tracking info such as bounce rates, where your store visitors are located, and how long they’re staying on your site, among other things. This opens the door for you to shift your approach to your store. For example, if you see that users seem particularly interested in a particular product, but they almost always click away from your site once they reach the checkout process, it may be an indication that you need to revisit your approach to simplify the user experience.
Clearly, implementing Google analytics can bring a range of benefits for your Shopify store, but you may not be clear on precisely how to get started with the process. We’ve broken down all of the steps you’ll need to take to effectively set up Google Analytics for your store, as well as some of the ways that you can utilise the insights that you gain.
How to Set Up Google Analytics for Your Shopify Store
Both Google and Shopify are infamous for making their services as user friendly as possible, so even if you’re not particularly tech-savvy, you shouldn’t have trouble getting started with your eCommerce reporting so long as you follow these steps.
1. Start by Getting A Google Account
Assuming you do not already have Google Analytics enabled for your store, your first step is to get a Google account; if you already have one (which is likely, since Gmail has more than 1.8 billion users worldwide), then you simply need to enable Google analytics.
2. Enable The Latest Version of Google Analytics
Once you have a Google account established that you’d like to use for your tracking purposes, then you can open Google analytics and sign in. When you sign up, you’ll need to fill out all of the required information for a website, and you want to be sure that you use your primary domain when analytics asks for a website URL.
When you have signed up and verified all of the necessary information, you can click “get tracking ID.” From there, you will have to accept terms of service and then copy the global site tag.
Once you have the global site tag copied, open your Shopify admin in a new tab. Navigate to the preferences section of the online store area, then find the Google analytics block. Here you will see an empty field where you can paste the global site tag that you have already copied. After you paste that tag and click save, you should see a line of code beginning with “UA” where the blank field was previously—this means that Google Analytics has been enabled effectively.
3. Enable Ecommerce Tracking
There are two types of eCommerce tracking that you can allow Google to complete: basic and enhanced. Basic eCommerce tracking simply provides data about revenue and transactions, whereas enhanced eCommerce tracking will give you a more detailed insight into visitor behaviour in real-time. To enable basic eCommerce tracking, go to your Google analytics admin account and find your eCommerce settings within the view menu. You can simply toggle the Enable Ecommerce button from “off” to “on,” and basic tracking will commence.
For enhanced eCommerce tracking, you will need to refer back to your Shopify admin and find the Google Analytics section of your preferences once again. There you will see a checkbox that says “Use Enhanced Ecommerce,” which you will want to check and then click save.
Note that if you do not have the most current version of Google analytics enabled for your store, you may not be able to check this box until you update it.
Once you have enabled enhanced eCommerce from your Shopify admin, you will return again to the eCommerce settings in your Google Analytics admin. You should now have the option to enable enhanced eCommerce settings; toggle the button to “on” and click save. Once you have completed all of these steps, you will unlock access to all of your audience’s interactions with your site which can be used to improve your eCommerce conversions.
How Store Owners Can Use Google Analytics to Improve Conversions
It’s always worthwhile to gain insight into your customers’ browsing and buying habits, but these are some concrete ways that Google Analytics can improve your overall strategy and help you convert more leads to sales.
1. Pinpointing Problem Areas of Your Site
One of the biggest benefits of monitoring Google Analytics for your Shopify store is gaining insight into potential customers’ viewing habits, particularly when it comes to bounce rates.
The current eCommerce bounce rate averages a little over 45%, so if you notice that you have a particular page which appears to be turning shoppers away at a much higher volume, then you need to take a closer look at what is going wrong with that section of your site.
Perhaps the images you’re using aren’t high quality, or that particular page is too bogged down by multimedia elements so the load time is incredibly slow. In any case, maintaining a critical eye based on the information in your Google analytics will allow you to address problems in your store before they ruin your business.
2. Letting You Know if You’re Wasting Resources
Google Analytics can tell you where the traffic on your website is coming from, whether that’s organic searches, social media, industry blogs, email marketing campaigns, or anything else.
This is particularly useful if you’re running something like a Facebook ad, and you want to know whether it’s effective. Google analytics provide concrete evidence as to whether or not a particular campaign is earning the traffic you desire.
3. Presenting Potential Opportunities to Streamline Your Business
A whopping 99% of consumers say that fast delivery is important when they make an online purchase. This is an issue if, for example, your analytics reveal that the majority of your shoppers live in the Western portion of the country, but your distribution center is in the East.
By better understanding your market, you can adjust your business ideas and practices to better fit the needs of your audience; you may even be able to find a way to start delivering products within 24 hours, which would surely assist with converting more leads.
Over To You
These are just a few of the ways that Google analytics can fundamentally impact your strategies. With the help of professionals like Australian Internet Advertising, you can turn the insights that you gain from your analytics into data-backed approaches that will dramatically alter the trajectory of your business.
Contact our Shopify Website Development experts today to see how we can implement Google Analytics for your Shopify store, and harness the information we gain to generate a thoughtful and impactful strategy.
