To run a thriving Shopify store, you must adjust according to valuable data rather than guesswork or assumptions.
You must set up Google Analytics in your Shopify store to get the correct data. Doing so gives you the necessary information to optimize your site’s performance.
Google Analytics can help you adjust to increase your store’s search visibility, conversions, and revenue.
Implementing this web analytics for your online store may seem daunting at first.
If you don’t know where to start, you’ve come to the right place.
I create this guide to walk you through how to add Google Analytics to Shopify.
Table of Contents
How To Add Google Analytics to Shopify
Here’s how to add Google Analytics to Shopify.
Create a Google Account.
You need to set up a Google account to use Google Analytics.
You can use the same account for this web analytics tool if you’re already using Google products such as Ads or a Gmail account.
Ensure you haven’t implemented Google Analytics since enabling it more than once leads to inaccurate Ecommerce tracking reports.
If you aren’t sure whether you have enabled Google Analytics, follow these steps to check your Google Analytics ecommerce settings.
- Go to Shopify admin.
- Click Settings, then click Apps and sales channel.
- From the Apps and sales channels section, click Online store.
- Click the Open sales channel button.
- Select Preferences.
- When you visit the Google Analytics section, there shouldn’t be any code that begins with UA. If you see this Google Analytics code, it means Google Analytics has already been enabled.
- Click the Themes button.
- Click Actions, then click Edit code.
- Click {/} theme.liquid in the Layout section.
- Ensure you don’t see these Google Analytics tracking tags in the “{/} theme.liquid” file.
- dc.js
- ga.js
- analytics.js
- gtag.js.
Seeing these tags means web analytics is already enabled.
Set up a Google Analytics Account.
To set up a Google Analytics account and enable Google Analytics, you need to create Universal Analytics property in Google and add it to your online store. Follow the steps below:
- Go to your web browser and sign in to Google Analytics.
- Click Admin.
- Click Create property in the Account section.
- Add a name for the property.
- Click Create a Universal Analytics property only.
- Click Next.
- Click the appropriate settings.
- Select Create.
- Highlight and press Ctrl + C (PC) or command + C (Mac) to copy Universal Analytics property to your clipboard.
- Open your Shopify admin in a new browser.
- Go to the Online store section and click Preferences.
- Go to the Google Analytics section and paste the Universal Analytics property in the Google Analytics account field.
Note: Following these steps is essential because Google Analytics 4 properties are not compatible with a Shopify account by default.
Activate Ecommerce Tracking.
There are two ways to activate Google’s Ecommerce tracking. The first one provides basic information such as transaction and revenue data, while the other one provides more in-depth data like user behavior.
Basic Ecommerce Tracking: Steps You Need to Follow
- Go to your Google Analytics account and click Admin.
- In the View section, select “Ecommerce Settings.
- Turn on the Enable Ecommerce toggle.
In case you prefer Enhanced Ecommerce Tracking, continue reading.
Google Analytics Ecommerce Tracking
Follow these steps for enhanced ecommerce tracking.
- Go to Shopify admin.
- Click Settings, then Apps and sales channels.
- Click Online store.
- Select Open sales channel.
- Click Preferences.
- In the Google Analytics field, check Use Enhanced Ecommerce. You have to upgrade to the latest version of Google Analytics before you can click the checkbox.
- Click Save to start Google Analytics ecommerce tracking.
- Go to your Google Analytics account and click Admin.
- Select Ecommerce Settings in the View column.
- After selecting Ecommerce Settings, you can click on the Enable Enhanced Ecommerce Reporting.
- Click Save.
Note: Google Analytics won’t track visitors unless you remove password protection from your Shopify store.
Feel free to customize your Google Analytics setup after following these steps.
Why Add Google Analytics to Your Shopify Store?
Google Analytics isn’t just about finding relevant data to determine how customers use your online store. It also allows you to interpret this information to improve the performance of your Shopify site.
Google Analytics may look technical, but it boils down to understanding specific metrics, such as shoppers’ online activities and behavior, to help your online store generate more sales.
Understanding key metrics, such as where your customers come from, which products appeal to them the most, and how long they stay on your online shop, can help your site deliver a better user experience.
Giving your customers an excellent experience is the key to business growth because it promotes loyalty and high customer retention.
Google Analytics’s Key Metrics You Should Know
Metrics are quantitative measures that tell how some aspects of your Ecommerce site perform.
An example would be the number of users who visits your Shopify store (website traffic).
Before you enable Google Analytics for ECommerce tracking, it’s nice to learn these key metrics that can help you make the necessary adjustments, and increase your sales.
Sessions
These are user interactions with your Ecommerce store for a certain period of time.
Page Views
These are the total number of page views on a specific page. So if you look at product A and navigate to two different products to make a comparison before going back to the first product page, it would count as four page views.
Unique Page Views
If you navigate to different products but visit product A page repeatedly, it would still count as one unique page view for the said page.
Average Time on Page
As its name suggests, it’s how long a user stays on a specific page.
Bounce Rate
It’s the percentage of visitors to your Shopify website who navigate away after viewing only one page or leaving your store under one second of launching the page.
Transactions
The number of purchases your online store generates.
Revenue
It’s the total revenue your online business generates.
Conversation Rate
It’s the number of sessions that end up with a transaction (i.e., final purchase).
Ecommerce Tracking Elements
While website traffic can shed light on your online searchability, it does not show a complete picture of your store’s performance.
Here are the two most important things that you should track with Google Analytics:
Customers
Google Analytics’s Ecommerce tracking tool offers features that will help you create a buyer profile, which is a description of a customer (or a group of customers) that includes demographic and geographic characteristics.
This web analytics tool also sheds light on your customers’ online behavior and activities.
User Interaction with the Shopify Site
You can learn how visitors use your website when you use Google Analytics and Shopify Analytics. By understanding user interaction, you’ll get an insight into these things:
- Problems your website may have
- Underperforming products
- Web pages that are underperforming due to glitches, poor-quality images, etc.
- Forms that aren’t converting
To get an overview of user behavior, click “Behavior” and “Overview.”
From here, you can check your landing pages, product pages, etc., and see which ones require some improvements or adjustments.
Upgrading to Universal Analytics in Shopify
If you recently added Google Analytics to your online store, by default, it would give you Universal Analytics, which is the latest version.
If you enabled Google Analytics to your Shopify store years ago, you likely need to upgrade it to Universal Analytics.
Universal Analytics is the latest version of Google Analytics that offers more powerful data and features.
For example, it allows you to compare user interaction and behavior when they visit your Ecommerce store using mobile versus desktop.
You’ll know if you need an upgrade when your Shopify store’s admin page says: “You’re currently using an older version of Google Analytics. Upgrade to the latest version.”
Upgrading to the latest version of Google Analytics lets you access the following insights on ecommerce performance.
- The number of times your customers have clicked on each product
- The number of page views each product has generated
- How long do visitors hang around
- What state or country they’re from
- How many people visit your Shopify store
Using Google Analytics and Shopify Analytics for Beginners
Google Analytics and Shopify Analytics provide great insights to help you run a striving Ecommerce store.
Specifically, these tools can help you learn more about your customers and site performance.
However, the amount of information may be overwhelming, especially for beginners. I recommend focusing only on specific metrics that really matter to your online store.
The most important key metrics differ from store to store. However, most businesses track the following metrics.
- Gross sales
- Net sales
- Conversion rates
- Returning customer rates
- Top products and product types sold
- Sales by referrer (Do the sales come from email, search, social media, or direct?)
Focus on the basics first as you learn the ins and outs of Google Analytics.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Do I Need Google Analytics if I’m Already Using Shopify Analytics?
No, enabling Google Analytics is not necessary if you’re already using Shopify Analytics.
However, using these tools together can provide you with a more detailed view of your customers’ shopping behavior and site traffic.
The Shopify Analytics dashboard gives you information about site performance, page views, number of visitors, and popular search engine keywords.
However, it doesn’t provide insight into customers’ behavior and activities.
On the other hand, Google Analytics sheds light on user interaction, the most viewed and purchased products, the most popular pages, the length of time visitors stay on your site, the conversion rates, etc.
Remember, Shopify’s Customer reports are limited to 30,000 customers. Thus, enabling Google Analytics is almost mandatory if you’re running a big online store.
How Does Google Analytics Work with Shopify?
Google Analytics inserts a tracking code into each page of your site. So when a user visits your online shop, this Ecommerce tracking code sends data back to this web analytics tool to be processed and analyzed.
This tracking code is known as a Google Analytics tracking code or Google Analytics tracking tag.
If you don’t see a tracking code in the Google Analytics section of your account, it means you haven’t enabled Google Analytics in your Shopify store.
Google Analytics code also measures the performance of other marketing channels such as paid search, social media, organic search, email marketing, etc.
As a result, it’s a valuable tool if you want to optimize their marketing efforts and sales.
Go to your Google Analytics account dashboard to view relevant data.
Is Google Analytics Good at Tracking Revenue?
Yes! Some people think that Google Analytics is only ideal for website tracking. However, this tool is also good at tracking the revenue and transactions of online stores.
When you use Google Analytics to collect and analyze Ecommerce data, you want to focus on these things:
- The most popular products
- Customer behavior and activities in your store
- Geographical location of your customers
- Channels that drive the most sales
Why Are Google Analytics and Shopify Analytics Reports Different?
Some users have reported that Shopify Analytics showed a lower visitor number than Google’s. The disparity is because these tools track and record visitors differently.
Despite some discrepancies, I still recommend using Shopify Analytics and Google Analytics together.
The Bottom Line
Now that you’ve setup Google Analytics and have a basic understanding of the critical metrics that matter most to your store, you might be inspired to expand your ecommerce business.
If you’re planning for growth, you may consider upgrading to Shopify Plus. It would help to learn the differences between Shopify and Shopify Plus.
