How to Add Google Analytics to Shopify

A super simple guide for new e-commerce store owners

The best way to improve your Shopify store is to learn as much as you can about your customers – like how they find and browse your store. For traditional retail stores, that information is relatively easy to come by – you can simply ask your customers in person. But for e-commerce store owners who never come face-to-face with their customers, this can be a challenge.

This is where analytics are essential. They allow you to collect information about how your customers use your store, and by interpreting this data, you can use it to improve the performance of your business.

You may or may not know about the Analytics section of your Shopify account. Shopify Analytics is informative, but if you add Google Analytics to your Shopify store, you’ll get access to a powerhouse of analytic resources that will help you propel your online business forward.

When you understand your customers’ buying behaviour, you can develop and market products that align with their preferences – this can have a huge positive impact on your sales.

For those new to Shopify, this super-simple guide will show you step-by-step how to add Google Analytics to your Shopify store, and how you can use the data collected to learn more about your customers.

Step 1: set-up your Google account

First up, you need to create a Google account.

Those who use other Google products, like Gmail or Ads, can use the same account and skip this step.

Step 2: enable Google Analytics

The next step is to enable your Google Analytics account.

1. Open Google Analytics, and sign in using your allocated Google account details.
2. Click Sign up.

• You’ll be prompted to choose a website and fill in some information. Your primary domain should be used as the website URL.

• Click Get Tracking ID.
• Find your country in the drop-down menu and click Accept to acknowledge you’ve read the terms of service.
• On the next page, you’ll see a lot of information and options. For now, ignore all of it except the Global Site Tag. You’ll need to copy this piece of code.

• Open your Shopify admin in a new browser tab. Navigate your way to Online Store>Preferences.
• In the Google Analytics section, paste the global site tag you’ve just copied into the account field.

You’ll know Google Analytics has been enabled when you see a code beginning with UA- under the Google Analytics account heading in your Shopify admin.

Step 3: turn on tracking

There are two types of e-commerce tracking you can enable: basic tracking for transaction and revenue data, and advanced tracking for visitor behavior. We recommend you turn on both.

To switch on basic tracking, go back to your Google Analytics account and do the following:

Click Admin > View > E-commerce settings > Turn on.

To switch to advanced tracking, stay in your Shopify admin and do the following:

Open your Shopify admin > Online store > Preferences. In the Google Analytics section, click Use Enhanced E-commerce. Hit save.

Then in your Google Analytics account, you’ll need to:

Click Admin > View > E-commerce Settings > Enable Enhanced E-commerce Reporting > Turn on > Save.

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The more you know the better

Great job! You’ve successfully added Google Analytics to your Shopify store. In time, you’ll have a good amount of tracking data that you can use to improve your business and drive more sales.

Here is how you can use some of the basic information collected in Google Analytics to make valuable improvements to your business.

• Find out which marketing channels drive the most traffic to your store and generate the most revenue using Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels.
• Discover where in the world your products sell the best – use this information for retargeting. Use Audience > Geo > Location.
• Learn more about the performance of each individual product. This data is great for informing new product launches or where you’re best to spend your advertising budget. You’ll find this report here: Conversions > E-commerce > Product Performance.
• Uncover any product pages with high bounce rates. This usually means the page isn’t what your customers were expecting. Consider adjusting the product copy and any associated marketing material.
• If the majority of your customers access your site using their mobiles, dedicate more time to optimizing your store for mobile sales.

While you’re at it, get your accounting data sorted

So, you’ve set up your Google account, added Google Analytics to your Shopify store, and you’ve got useful and reliable analytics at your fingertips. Just as important as tracking data from your customers, is setting up your accounting correctly – so you have accurate and reliable accounting data to work with as well.

A2X for Shopify will automatically pull transactional data from your Shopify account, and post summaries to your accounting system. This means your system won’t become overloaded with data, and you can accurately reconcile your accounts in a matter of minutes.

Using a combination of your customer behaviour and accounting data is the best way to move your business forward – now that’s smart business!