Sure, we all love using Google Analytics to help us understand our online users’ behaviors and engagement level. But did you know that eCommerce platforms like Shopify offer us deeper insights into the customer’s buying journey, too?
Though it’s best practice, and highly recommended, to integrate Google Analytics (GA) with your eCommerce site—as this allows you to track and monitor all website traffic and user activity in one easy-to-read reporting platform—the purpose of this article is to walk you through some important data that’s available via Shopify’s analytics and reporting.
What Are Shopify Insights?
Also referred to as Shopify analytics, this data tracking tool is automatically set up and ready to use when you launch your Shopify site. It’s “kind of” similar to GA at a high level.
Here’s an example:
As with GA, you can track certain key metrics regarding your users’ behaviors, such as:
- New and returning customers
- Sales sources
- Number of online orders
- Total revenue
But, many experts argue that Shopify offers more reliable sales insights and historical data than what’s available in GA:
“The best sales data comes from Shopify, and the best website data comes from Google Analytics. The ecommerce data in Google Analytics, by contrast, is at best an approximation of your sales data…with Google Analytics you won’t be able to answer questions like “How has our average order value changed over the past six months?” with any degree of accuracy,” (Slide Rule Analytics).
Aside from historical data, if you also operate a brick-and-mortar location, Shopify can help you monitor and compare in-store sales and location-based performance to your online store platform. These capabilities include:
- Sales POS location(s): This metric helps you keep track of the total number of sales completed at each physical store location.
- Sales by staff members: In addition to tracking in-store sales, you can monitor which sales associate has the highest/lowest number of sales.
- Top products by units sold: This metric reveals which products are top sellers among your customers. This can help you plan upcoming marketing campaigns to bring in new customers, as well as help you stay ahead of inventory stockouts or supply shortages.
- Repeat Customer Rate: This metric allows you to dive a bit deeper into your returning customers’ data. It provides you with a percentage of customers who have placed more than one order from your store. This can help you with identifying which customers are the most likely to convert and which are less likely.
Using Shopify Data & Analytics
It’s not too surprising that since Shopify is an online “shopping” platform it offers more insights into the sales funnel of your business website.
However, to help you improve your marketing strategy and launch successful promotions and ad campaigns that lead to better conversions, you do need to analyze the entire picture, right? This is why combining your Shopify insights with GA is essential!
Let’s also not forget that in order to gain access to those helpful Shopify reports we mentioned earlier, which range from retail sales, profit, acquisition, and user behaviors, you do need to upgrade your subscription plan from Lite to at least Basic while GA is still free!
Further, as we noted in our last article of GA4, Google is always working on new ways to grow and evolve its capabilities, which means you’re going to enjoy more improved tracking features to help you paint an accurate picture of who your customers are, what their shopping habits are, and how they’re finding you from your competitors.
Need Help with Data Reporting?
As always, deciphering data correctly to inform your marketing strategy takes careful planning and consideration. If you have questions about using Shopify analytics, GA, or integrating the two data tracking tools, our SEO experts can help!
Contact us for a free consultation, so we can help you take the guesswork out of what your customers want and need from your eCommerce store!
