The Enhanced Ecommerce features in Google Analytics bring online retailers benefits that Google Analytics alone cannot achieve. It is worthy to note that Enhanced Ecommerce features provide marketers with the ability to completely customize shoppers’ experiences and gain valuable insights for further optimization. When the plug-in is set up, it opens up new dimensions and metrics providing more actionable understanding of the financial operations of the website. This ranges from:
- Checkout behavioral analysis
- Transactions
- Product impressions
- And so much more
Beginning to Use Enhanced Ecommerce Features
Setting up Enhanced Ecommerce may seem daunting at first, given it’s highly-technical application. However, this should not keep anyone away from utilizing its features.
Installation to begin using Enhanced Ecommerce begins with an upgrade to Universal Analytics, as . Enhanced Ecommerce has been made available only on Universal Analytics. After this, the user will need to set up the Enhanced Ecommerce plugin. In an incredibly abbreviated description, you, or your technical team, will need to set up a variety of codes for diverse types of monitoring and reports. These codes include:
- Actions such as adding or eliminating a product from the shopping cart
- Product impressions
- Product clicks
- The steps involved in the checkout procedure
As soon as you finalize your tracking and codes, your team can go to the Analytics admin and click on the settings in the view section. Click the “switch on” option that appears on the next page.
Next, turn on the options available in the Enhanced Ecommerce menu and watch for the Ecommerce data in the reporting dashboard.
One important note is some of the largest eCommerce platforms have a partnership with Google. This means the Enhanced Ecommerce platform may already have in-built integrations to your eCommerce solution:
- Magento: If the online store is powered by Magento, this free plugin can be used to set up the Ecommerce tracking.
- Shopify: It has a paid application for its store owners who may want to utilize more advanced features of Google Analytics. It is easy to set up.
- PrestaShop: This is an open source E-commerce software. Its free application can be utilized for Analytics.
- WordPress: A free plugin is available for Wordpress.
- MShopper: It is prominent for its mobile commerce innovations. It enables store owners to install mobile friendly shops.
Data Types And Actions Of Enhanced Ecommerce
Enhanced Ecommerce compiles diverse types of data that one can transfer via analytics.js. These include:- Impression Data: It symbolizes information concerning products that have been viewed. It is often called “impressionfieldobject.”
- Product Data: It symbolizes each distinct products that were viewed and further added to the shopping cart. It is mostly referred to as “productfieldobject.”
- Promotion Data: It symbolizes information concerning a promotional n that was viewed. It is also known as a “promofieldobject.”
- Action Data: It symbolizes information of an E-commerce linked action that already took place. It is also known as an “actionfieldobject.”
- Product and Promotion Actions: The actions here are specifically used in interpreting products and product information that was sent to Google Analytics.
Understanding The Plug-in Features And Report Options
With Enhanced Ecommerce installed, now it’s time to explore the features and benefits!
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Shopping Behavior Analysis
The report of the shopping behavior analysis is based on how individuals respond to every event that occurs on the website. This ranges from entering the site down to checking out with any product. Reviewing the shopping behavior analysis is important to understand what people are interested in within your site. If a certain page on your site is getting less visits than the others, you should investigate why that is and try to fix it.
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Checkout Behavior Analysis
This report operates similarly to the shopping behavior analysis. It is based majorly on the tags that are built during setup and offers a more comprehensive analysis of the checkout procedure. It is basically concerned with in-depth data on how the customers react when they have the product on the shopping cart and when they are buying it.
The checkout behavior analysis report is vital to understanding how your key customers engage with your website when they want to buy something. For example, if you see a lot of your customers putting items in their cart but not checking (e.g. cart abandonment) out, then there might be a problem with the user interface of the checkout process as users clearly want to buy items but they might be frustrated with the actual experience. Optimizing your checkout procedures, and using the checkout report, is critical in capturing all possible purchases.
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Product List Performance
This report provides quality value to every operation. It majorly aims at providing information based on the distinct pages of the products and data on how the related and suggested product connections perform. Google even suggests that store owners utilize the product information import function if they are doubtful about the data and snippets weighing on the site. Using the product performance list will give you a better idea of which products perform best, and which ones may need optimization. If the report shows that a product performs poorly consistently, you may want to consider reducing the inventory, changing its placement on the site, running a specific campaign behind it, or remerchandising to eliminate it from stock.
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Sales Performance
The sales performance report is likened to the old transactions report. However, in this case, store owners get an area that incorporates information for the sake of refunds. It is a nice concept for identifying the products that seem to be like the large sellers. Meanwhile, they turn out as duds due to refunds that happen later on. This report is important to review to get a full picture of product performance. If certain products are frequently returned, it is worth looking into to better understand why. Is sizing abnormal or inconsistent? Is the product showing up not as advertised elsewhere? Is it defective?
