Important eCommerce reports in Google Analytics 4(GA4) for Shopify Stores
In this article, you'll find the most important Google Analytics 4 reports that you should check out regularly for your Shopify store. This will help you have a deeper understanding so that you don't get lost in numbers anymore! You don't need to be an expert in Google Analytics, but having a good command of the essential reports can be game-changing to have a strategic plan and vision.
Before we start, let's make sure that you have Google Analytics 4 set up on your Shopify store. Make sure to check our comprehensive guide for Shopify Analytics. Scroll down to Google Analytics 4 section, and you will find the GA4 Setup options there.
If you don't have a Google Analytics account but want to continue learning, the demo account would be great to examine some actual business data and see how the Google Analytics features work. You can access the GA4 demo account using this link.
We can now get started discovering Google Analytics 4!
Traffic & Attribution
In Google Analytics 4, navigate to Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels.
This is the first report you should check out daily or weekly based on the traffic to your website. The "Traffic Source" and the other metrics by "Traffic Source," total revenue, and more can be observed via this table.
Overall, this report helps you find out where the visitors come from. It answers such questions as:
- Which channel do I get the most traffic from?
- Which medium do I earn more revenue from?
- How many users do I have, and how long do they stay on my pages?
- Which channels convert better?
So, what results can you possibly have from this data? Well, it would help you better understand:
- if you have more visitors coming from direct traffic or referral traffic,
- whether there's a high amount of traffic that ends up being not engaging,
- if you have a little traffic with a very high conversion rate,
- whether you can see your Google Ads campaigns,
Therefore, it would be wise to start making some modifications. You can look at the first Google Analytics Health Check article to get help and fix the issues better beforehand.
Product & Category & Brand Performance
Now, go to Monetization > E-commerce purchases in Google Analytics 4.
1. Product
Here you can see some details about the product name, item view, add-to-carts, cart-to-view rate, item purchases, and more. Let's take a deep dive into it!
It's important to note that the "cart-to-view" metric is important to understand the ratio of view/add-to-cart. Additionally, the item revenue and purchase-to-view rate metrics are helpful to have an idea about product-level performance. Other important metrics are item category and item brand. Let's discover more about them now! Long story short, this report lets you quickly see the most popular product that you sell in your store.
2. Category
Now, let's select the item category after clicking on the item name.
The item category can bring your entire product catalog into Analytics and let you measure the user behavior, traffic, and revenue thanks to the category-specific data. It provides insight into the questions of:
Which categories are not performing well?
Which categories do I earn more income from?
Which categories are my users more interested in?
In which category would it make sense to increase the number and variety of products?
You can take action based on the answers to these questions.
3. Brand
Let's head to item brand from item name, now. We see a page similar to the one we examined in item-name and item-product, at this point.
It's possible to say that we can identify which brands are selling better or which brands are not performing well here. Accordingly, we can increase the product range of the brand that provides us with more income.
What results can you conclude from this data?
Well, once you detect a product that is viewed a lot but has a very low purchase rate, you may consider using the sales approach you apply for this product on a product that has a reasonable sales rate with relatively few views.
Purchase & Order
Now, let's navigate to Monetization > Overview.
Here you will see the total revenue, e-commerce revenue, and total ad revenue tabs. You can see the change in the graph by clicking on these tabs. When you hover over it through any point, you can get more detailed information about your data.
When you scroll down, you'll see more graphs about total purchases, first-time purchases, average purchase revenue by user, and more. You can customize the graphs according to the data you want to see.
Below these graphs, we see a section without any data information.
As we know, many store owners use coupons to promote their products or increase sales. If you do the same, you can use this section to see your performance at the coupon level and get information about how the coupon affects your sales.
Retention & Lifetime value
In Google Analytics 4, navigate to Life cycle > Retention.
When you hover over it through any point, you can get more in-depth information for any specific time, and you can add a comparison to see the difference in case you need it.
This report helps you realize how frequently and for how long users engage with your website by means of;
- new and returning users,
- user retention by cohort (percentage of the new user cohort on a charted date who return each day),
- user engagement by cohort,
- lifetime value metrics.
Without a doubt, lifetime value is one of the most important metrics for e-commerce stores. It analyzes user behavior in general and its value as a lifetime customer. This helps a company determine profitability and manage goals for growth.
Healthcheck by TECH
In Google Analytics 4, navigate to User > Tech > Tech Overview.
Tech details are significant to identify a good user experience. You can use this report to examine metrics like:
- users by the operating system,
- users by device category,
- users by screen resolution,
- users by browser,
and more…
When you click on "view platform devices," you'll see important details here, like engaged sessions and engagement rate.
Relying on the tech report, you can spot the issues with your website. For example, if the number of users using mobile is higher than the number of people using tablets, but the income you get from the tablet users is twice as much as the one you get from the mobile, you can conclude that there may be a problem concerning the mobile system. It might be about the payment part, or the pop-ups could be large enough to disturb. On the other hand, there could also be a problem depending on the operating system used on the mobile. You can see if this situation belongs to a specific operating system by opening the detailed report of the operating system.
Furthermore, if there is a low engagement rate on a particular browser, you can infer that it could be all about a compatibility issue. Likewise, if engaged sessions are too low, there could be an issue with functioning. Besides, with screen resolution, you can check things like your font size, etc., to make sure that your website is well optimized for everyone.
In addition, you can share these reports with your technical unit by finding the "share this report" on the top right.
When you share the link you get from here with someone who has access to your Google Analytics account, the report will be displayed.
Analytics Intelligence Insights
Click the Insights icon next to the share icon.
It contains many useful suggested questions related to primary performance, demographics, user acquisition, traffic analysis, technology, and e-commerce to provide precious clues about things. You can also type up your question.
For example;
By using the demographic tab you can find answers to,
- What languages do people use the most?
- What countries do my users come from?
By using user acquisition, you can learn,
- How many users come from organic searches in the last 30 days?
By using the technology tab, you can determine,
- What platforms are used the most?
- What browsers are used the most?
- What devices are used the most?
Therefore, it would be wise to reach all this data easily from here instead of searching one by one in Google Analytics 4.
Final Words
In a nutshell, Google Analytics 4 is a system with many reports that offer a wide range of details. If you discover more and learn to analyze the data you need using that effectively, you can have a broader and better perspective about how everything is going. As a result of this, it would be as easy as pie to add a new dimension to your Shopify store with the strategies you will develop.
There's no doubt that Google Analytics reports are vital tools in today's world, especially for online stores. They help you have a better idea about a bunch of things such as your website traffic, the source of this traffic, how your mobile website currently performs, where your users come from, and how many goal conversions some certain pages drive. What's more, it also helps you detect and fix problems on your website in advance.
Source: https://analyzify.app/hub/ga4-ecommerce-reports/
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