Before you start marketing your new eCommerce business, you need the right tools to measure its performance. In the digital world, we never make decisions blindly. Instead, we use quantifiable data to help us understand what, when, why, where and who for everything we do online. By collecting data, we can identify problems and improve performance and increase conversions.  

Install Google Analytics

Imagine walking into a store and the owner asks you:

  • Where did you hear about our store?
  • Did someone refer you?
  • Where do you live?
  • How long do you want to stay in the store?
  • Which products are you interested it in?
  • Why didn’t you buy anything?

From a customer’s direct perspective, these questions are a waste of time not to mention a bit intrusive. But to an owner, the answers to these questions provide valuable insight which can be used to make changes and optimize the store to ensure customers buy products.  That’s exactly what Google Analytics (GA) does. GA is a free web tool that collects data and presents it to us in an easy to use dashboard (pictured above).

What does Google Analytics tell you about your site’s traffic?

Here’s an abbreviated list of features in Google Analytics:

  • Traffic: See how many people visit your site in a given period (day, week, month, year, etc). You can also see the location of your site’s visitors
  • Source: See how people found your site. Was it organically? If so, which keywords did they search for? Did they find you through social media? If so, was it Facebook, Instagram or Twitter?
  • Bounce Rate: How many people came to your site but left without visiting another page? A high bounce rate (over 40%) is a strong indication that either your site is poorly designed or it’s missing something that people are expecting to see on the landing page.
  • Page Flow: How do people interact with your site? Page flow describes the path visitors follow from the time they arrive to the time they leave. This is a valuable tool to optimize the site for the sales funnel.
  • eCommerce tracking: Track sales, revenue, and product purchases. Tracking helps identify your most profitable products and most valuable customers. It is an essential feature for eCommerce sites.
  • Goals:
    Track specific outcomes such as people who sign up for a newsletter, click on a specific link, press a certain button, etc. This can be a valuable metric to conduct experiments and A/B split testing.

How to Install Google Analytics

To install Google Analytics, you need to signup for the service at http://www.google.com/analytics/. You’ll be asked to provide some basic information about your site, and then Google will generate a User ID for you along with a special script (lines of code) which they say has to copied and pasted on to every page of your website.

This is the Google Analytics Page, they’ll show you how to install it, or watch any of these YouTube videos

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