Data is, or should be, the driving force behind any changes you make to your site, your marketing, and anything else concerning your ecommerce site. But, where do you get really great data? Sure, most content management systems have some sort of built-in analytics. With your Magento site, you do have access to analytics provided by the platform.
Oftentimes, there’s a need for deeper data, especially when you’re trying to gauge the success of your marketing campaigns. You can turn to third party analytics services that often charge a monthly fee to gather and filter your data. However, there is a totally free, totally powerful tool at your fingertips. This is Google’s own analytics platform. Whether you need some convincing to start tracking with Google Analytics, just installed your tracking code, or have had access to analytics for some time, there’s always something to learn. Let’s take a look at some starting points to get that great data you need:
Sections And Overviews
With any new tool, it’s always a good idea to spend some time exploring the platform. This can help you get used to the interface, and see how things look and function. We understand Google Analytics can be a bit overwhelming if you’re not a data wiz. Even if you are, knowing where to find important data is half the battle. Let’s start with the basic set-up and overview analytics provides for quick data digestion.
First of all, Google Analytics is split into 4 major data sets, with lots of other, smaller data sets under the major headings. These come after the options to see your data in real-time, custom dashboards, etc. The focus here are the Audience, Acquisition, Behavior, and Conversion sets. These are the 4 main areas that Google uses to organize and present your data.
With every set, you can define custom (or preset) time frames to see your historical data compared to your data for the current month. If you’re brand new to Google Analytics, you won’t be able to access any historical data. Google is only able to gather data after you’ve installed the proper tracking code site-wide. But, if you’ve had Google Analytics installed for some time, you can get a really valuable look at how your site performed compared to previous months, and even years.
One of the best features to our 4 main data sets is the overview option. By clicking “Overview” directly under each header, you can get a quick snapshot of your monthly data, or a defined time frame of data you set. This is great for quick check-ups to see how your site is performing, with a high-level look at the most important data in any set. We understand site owners, internal marketers, developers, etc. have busy days. Checking in on your “Overview” data for each set regularly is a great, quick way to stay informed.
New vs Returning And Channels
Google Analytics is so powerful because you can dive deep into lots and lots of data. If you’ve explored analytics at all, you’ll know you can click endlessly to access more and more data within each set, sub-set, and even further. We want to focus on the sub-sets we find most important when you’re just starting out.
As an ecommerce site owner, you’re concerned about how many people are visiting your site and how they’re getting there. These are very basic queries Google Analytics can provide good answers to. Taking a look at how your visitors are interacting with your site is key. Take the “New vs Returning” set of data; this allows you to see how many new visitors are landing on your site, compared to visitors coming back for multiple visits. This data can be found under the first set “Audience”, then under “Behavior.” We recommend looking at this set because it gives you a good idea of what’s working and what’s not working. A really high number of return visitors and a low amount of sales or conversions means people aren’t getting what they came for – they may be coming back, but not converting because something is missing. On the other hand, new visitor data gives you an idea of how well your marketing efforts are drawing visitors to your site.
After that, we move to “Channels,” which can be found under the second heading “Acquisition,” then under “All Traffic.” Channels allow you to see how your visitors are landing on your site. These channels are sorted into different sets: Organic Search, Referral, Direct, Social, Email, (Other), and Paid Search. This is really great data to look at to see how your marketing efforts are performing based on different plans and platforms. If you have an organic marketing plan and a social marketing plan, you’ll be able to compare and contrast their successes. Even if you don’t have a set plan for marketing by channel, you can get a good idea of how visitors are finding you; you can even spot a need for better marketing and engagement based on underperforming channels.
Conversions
We’ve saved the best for last! Running an ecommerce site, you care about cold, hard conversions – how many and how much are you selling each month? The “Conversions” set houses the single most important group of data for your ecommerce site – ecommerce reporting. “Ecommerce” can be found under the “Conversions” heading. Here, you have access to the data that really drives your site.
To enable ecommerce tracking, you do have to make a small change to your tracking code. If you already have the basic Google Analytics tracking code installed on your site, this is an easy, one time change to make. If you don’t have Google Analytics installed yet, it’s best to set up ecommerce tracking right away so you don’t have to go back and make changes later.
With ecommerce tacking, you have access to how users are behaving with your products, and how they are converting. The “Ecommerce” set includes another overview that gives you a quick look at important conversion data. Here, you can see headings like Ecommerce Conversion Rate, number of Transactions, Revenue, Average Order Value, Unique Purchases, and Quantity. This is a great set to visit on a daily basis, to stay up-to-date on how well your visitors are converting.
Then, under the “Overview” sub-section are even more sections for deeper data. You can dive further into sections like “Product Performance,” which gives you an idea of your best sellers. This is great data when determining how newer products are performing, or what stock to buy in again. You can also dive into “Sales Performance,” Transactions,” and “Time to Purchase.” Each defined set of data under ecommerce is extremely valuable when making decisions about the products you sell, what products could benefit from promotions or discounts, and so much more.
If you don’t have Google Analytics installed on your site, or you aren’t using the tool to its full potential, we hope to have swayed you a little bit! It’s no secret that Google Analytics has really cut down the amount of available data in recent years, like not provided for keyword data. But, we still believe this free tool has a lot of worth. As you explore and learn more about Google’s analytics platform, you can really get a sense for the depth of data and the ability to customize any number of reports and tracking parameters.
To get even more out of your Google Analytics, check out our Analytics Assessments.