How to Add Google Analytics to Shopify -Reasons Why You Need It!

Having a Shopify store for your e-commerce business is a good way to start making money. However, if you wish to run a thriving e-commerce store, you need to understand Shopify analytics so you can make the most of it. The biggest challenge Shopify users face is understanding how their store is being used by old and potential customers.

This is a challenge because the customer is not visible or accessible to you. In the case of physical stores and businesses, owners can ask in person how they feel about certain things. Things like the product or service, layout, colors, the checkout process and overall shopping experience. In e-commerce stores, the shopper is behind a screen and probably miles away!

Being an e-commerce business owner is not as easy. Even if you have the required information, how can that be utilized to improve a Shopify store? The answer is simple, look at what the customers want through Google analytics!

What are Shopify and Google Analytics?

Before we jump into the process of adding Google Analytics to your Shopify store, let us first look at what analytics are. Analytics are in-depth data and information about your customer journey on your e-commerce store. Which leads bring them to your website, which products they look at, and how long it takes for a customer to make a purchase.

Talking about sophisticated terms like how to add Google Analytics to a Shopify store may sound like rocket science but it is quite simple. The algorithm of Shopify is designed in a way that everyone can use it easily. The trick is to listen to what the customer is telling you about themselves and their journey with your business.

Once you make the sense of what they are trying to tell you can help you make appropriate changes to your Shopify store effectively. Although analyzing spreadsheets and number crunching is not something you imagined when building your business, you have to get to it. Understanding Shopify analytics is the key metric that helps you sell successfully on Shopify.

Understanding Your Customer

Analytics for an e-commerce business is all about the customer. Who they are, how they got there and how much time they spend on your website looking at which products? Once you have this information, you can improve their experience with your e-commerce store. This leads to higher conversion rates and ultimately customer loyalty.

To bring it all down, the more knowledge you have about your customer, the better your store can get. As mentioned earlier, the Shopify algorithms are designed to accommodate everyone, even someone who isn’t good with numbers! That being said, you do not have to be a math genius to understand how these numbers work.

The Shopify analytics reports are accessible and vigorous, meaning they are comprehensive and easy to understand. Once you decide to add Google Analytics to your Shopify store, know that it is free to install. This will prove to be your first step towards creating a data-driven strategy for your online Shopify store.

How to Add Google Analytics to Shopify

The reason why every online business need analysis is that it leads to action. Without Google Analytics, you will be shooting arrows in the dark with the hope it hits the bull’s eye. Guesswork always leads to loss of time and money and that is why adding Google Analytics to your Shopify store is important.

The first step is to add Google Analytics to your store. The integration is easy when you follow the easy steps mentioned in this article. In order for your business to grow, you need to keep an eye on how every product is performing. Imagine you buy a really cool car and just drive it without checking the speed meter or the fuel gauge. It will move but eventually come to a stand-still. Your Shopify store is a really cool car!

The importance of Google Analytics is in line with the ease of actually integrating it into your e-commerce store. To start with, create a Google account if you don’t have one. A Gmail account will be required for this integration to work. Google Analytics will run on this Gmail account for your Shopify store.

Next, follow these steps:

1. For your Shopify website, you will need to create, verify and activate an account on Gmail.

2 Enter the name of your Shopify store.

3. Copy and paste the link to your Shopify store. Make sure that the link is in URL format.

4. Make a selection of the industry that you work in – this will be in the form of a drop-down menu.

5. Click on Get Tracking ID.

6. Next, click on Accept at the end of Terms & Conditions by Google. (Give it a read if you must.)

7. A code will appear on your screen which you will need to copy.

8. After you have copied the code, open Shopify and select Online Store.

9. Look for Preferences and click on it.

10. This is the place where you will paste the code copied earlier. There will be a Google Analytics box where this code will be pasted.

11. Select Save.

And voila! You are done. However, nothing will change immediately after you are done with the integration. It usually takes up to 24 hours for Google Analytics to gather and analyze data from your Shopify store.

Shopify Advanced

Now that you have Google Analytics set up in your Shopify store, the real work begins. Bigger and more successful e-commerce stores upgrade their memberships to Shopify Advanced. The best thing about Shopify is that every plan can be analyzed on a trial basis for free. Once you are sure about the changes and the services offered by Shopify, you can continue with the advanced membership, or simply go back to the basic plan.

Upgrading To Universal Analytics

After Google Analytics is up and running on your Shopify store, consider upgrading to Universal Analytics. This is an advanced version of Google Analytics and offers many more useful features. However, there is nothing to worry about, this does not require additional work or learning.

This upgrade will give you an insight into how your customers are using their mobile devices to engage with your e-commerce store. The thing about using Google Analytics on Shopify stores is that it automatically uses Universal Analytics. You may not even have to upgrade this manually.

In case it does not happen on its own, you will receive a message on your store’s admin page. Simply click on that and follow the instructions to get the upgrade. This upgrade is a pure e-commerce based analytics that shows you details about how many products were viewed. Additionally, it also tells you the number of times shoppers clicked on each product.

The Basics of Google Analytics

A little understanding of Google Analytics and you can become a pro for your own store! However, if you feel you need professional advice, you can hire a Shopify SEO company that can help you achieve your business goals. Such Shopify SEO services focus mainly on the optimization of your store with access to information about your customers in detail.

Self-learning is the key to success here and thankfully Google has several guides available online that can introduce you to analytics. Additionally, Shopify has a support page, which is dedicated to Google Analytics.

The following metrics will appear on your store’s dashboard. Let’s look at them each:

· Sessions

This term refers to the number of interactions a visitor makes in thirty minutes. This timeframe is default by Google and a session is counted in this time per visit. If a customer comes to your website, takes a look at three products, makes a purchase and exits the website in thirty minutes, it is considered one session.

· Users

Users are visitors who have completed at least one session on your Shopify store. This does not include users who have completed several sessions in a go. For example, a user comes to your store and exits but comes again an hour later. This would be counted as two sessions with one user.

· Average Session Duration

The average number of hours, minutes or seconds a session lasts. An average is taken out of it and displayed under this metric.

· Bounce Rate

A very common online shopping behavior is going to a website and immediately going back since we don’t find what we were looking for. This is referred to as a bounce by Google. A bounce rate is a percentage of users that are doing this on your store.

· Percentage New Sessions

As the name suggests, this shows the percentage of sessions completed by first-time visits to your Shopify store.

Using Google Analytics with Shopify

Now that Google Analytics is successfully integrated with your Shopify store and you know the basics, what happens next? Let’s look at some basics of how Google Analytics can help in improving your e-commerce business.

With Google Analytics up and running, you can see the number of visitors in your store, the amount of time each visitor lingers and from which territory they come from. Getting so much information can be a bit overwhelming at the start but there is nothing to worry about. Stay afloat in the beginning before diving in deep into the world of minute analysis done by Google Analytics.

The key to staying focused on business success is to focus on metrics that directly impact your store. Starting with the basics is a great way and gradually learn your way towards successful business strategies.

Data with Google Analytics

Using Google Analytics is like digging in a gold mine that focuses on customer interaction. To begin with, refresh your business goals and keep their mind when using Google Analytics. This will help you stay focused on more important things and eventually lead to more sales.

If a metric from Google Analytics shows that the customer engagement is low, look into the following questions to make improvements.

1. Are the product images appealing to the eyes?

2. Is the page enticing the visitors to make a purchase?

3. How is the product placement on the landing page?

4. Is the message on the page clear to the visitor?

You can fix the problems mentioned above by:

1. Rewriting product descriptions.

2. Looking for better images for your website that feel professional.

3. Making changes to the page’s color theme.

4. Placing each product appropriately so visitors can see them immediately.

Analytics for Customer Relationship

Google Analytics is all about improving your relationship with the customers and gaining their confidence. Your Shopify store can be improved to what your customers want instead of what you have to offer. This is what modern digital marketing is all about anyway.

Additionally, with Google Analytics, you can see in real-time how many people are visiting your Shopify store and their country of residence. This greatly helps during an ongoing email or social media campaign. You will be able to see spikes in website traffic and the platform that is generating leads.

To Conclude

Adding Google Analytics to your Shopify store is an easy thing to do. However, this raises more questions than initially present. The learning curve of Google Analytics is a steady one and it is all in the available data you get. The more data you have, the better your analysis will be and the better the improvements.

Running an e-commerce store in 2022 is highly competitive but the only option for many. People prefer shopping online as compared to physical shopping due to the pandemic. This has led to high competition across the globe with more businesses having more to offer.

The real challenge is faced by small businesses that do not have the financial resources to run online stores on a trial and error basis. Adding Google Analytics to your Shopify store is a great way to make calculated decisions that result in higher sales and more profits.