We’ve talked about connecting Google Analytics with your online store, and the next step is to optimize it. More than simply allocating digital marketing tools, using GA4 is an essential resource for a competitive ecommerce site.
Here are the steps to take towards successfully running the new GA’s internet sales facilities to bring you visits, conversions and customers who keep coming back for purchases from your product pages.
Check the correct installation of Google Analytics (GA3, GA4) for your online store
Once you’ve gone through the steps of installing GA on your store platform, before moving on to optimizing your site with Google and on-page SEO optimization, check the following:
Correct implementation of essential scripts
When checking the correctness of your GA installation, you should also consider Google Tag Manager scripts. Only then will you be able to run adjacent scripts, such as Facebook Pixel, Pinterest pixel, Linkedin Ads, online chats and so on.
Make use of the facilities that Tag Assistant offers to make sure you have this essential tool for monitoring your online shop activity set up properly. Check the correct installation of tracking code, enable ecommerce tracking, insert remarketing code, exclude internal IP addresses.
Setting business goals, prioritized by macro-conversions and micro-conversions
The most important macro-conversions for the online shop you manage are: details about orders and transactions (number, value), display of the order – thank you page, statistics of requests and questions coming through the contact form, number and dynamics of new accounts created on the site by users of the online shop, number of quick orders of products on the site, activity on the blog.
Also consider micro-conversations that benefit your business goals. Here are some examples: average number of products in a shopping cart, length of visit to the site before placing an order, newsletter click-through rate.
Define GA conversions (GA3, GA4) as ecommerce transactions and create optimization reports
You need to enable ecommerce reports for conversion optimization. This will scan real-time site activity and extract useful insights on which to make informed decisions.
Using “ecommerce tracking” you will monitor ecommerce transactions, contained in the General eCommerce Report, Shopping Behaviour Analysis, Checkout Behaviour Report, Product Performance Report, Sales Analysis, Goal Flow Tracking, Funnel View Report.
Make sure you are optimally measuring orders from your online store’s ecommerce platform
You need to check that most of the orders you have in the ecommerce platform of your online shop are measured. You should not omit important metrics, so that the results GA delivers to you are really relevant.
See if they track in Google Analytics: check the correct attribution of traffic sources by using UTMs for marketing campaigns, install specific options for ecommerce tracking, integrate GA with Search Console/Ads/Facebook Ads. Last but not least, verify the existence and correct functioning of Business Goals in GA.
Apply effective measures to optimize your online business
Here’s what an effective online business optimization process run by an ecommerce website might look like:
- Periodically access the Source/Medium or Source/Modality report in GA3 or Acquisition in GA4, where users visiting the site can be viewed;
- Checks the revenue recorded by a media channel, e.g. ecommerce revenue recorded by visitors coming from Facebook Ads or those coming from Google Ads;
- Also checks the cost of each campaign from Facebook Ads or Google Ads in the dedicated campaigns report in the Cost Analysis report in GA3, after importing the costs from Facebook Ads into Analytics (or making your own report in Data Studio);
Legend: clicks – clicks per ad, ctr – click through rate, cpc – cost per click, revenue – revenue per campaign or total campaigns, cr% – conversion rate, cps – cost per sale, or how much an order costs us, roas – return on advertising spent, a common metric in advertising campaigns, cpr – cost per revenue, very easy to understand in relation to the gross margin of the online store.
- Optimizes audiences for Facebook Ads to increase the gap between ecommerce revenue and campaign costs;
- Optimizes Ad groups and keywords in Google Ads to increase operational profit, order revenue gap and campaign costs.
Legend: cost – cost per keyword, revenue – revenue per keyword per total keywords, cr% – conversion rate per keyword, cps – cost per sale, or how much it costs us per order brought in by that keyword, cpr – cost per revenue, indicator per keyword, purchases – number of orders brought in by that keyword, clicks – number of clicks generated by ads on that keyword, roas – return on advertising spent calculated on that keyword.
To optimize your online store using Google Analytics reports your online marketing team needs to be trained to mark up campaigns correctly, to use UTMs correctly (a set of abbreviations used by marketers to mark up campaigns without which it is not possible to correctly optimize campaign-level results in terms of profitability).
By applying DWF recommendations, you will benefit from increased traffic and conversions, and your marketing campaigns will be more effective. Users will benefit from user-friendly experiences, regardless of the device they use to access your online store.
