Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics – Tutorial
Table of Contents
- What is Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics?
- What is Ecommerce Data in Google Analytics?
- How to set up Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics?
- Understanding Shopping Carts and Payment Gateways
- Ecommerce Conversion Rate
- Ecommerce Transactions and Transaction IDs
- Revenue
- Average Order Value
- Unique Purchases
- Quantity
- Average Quantity
- Product SKU
- Average Price
- Product Revenue
- Per Session Value
- Where Can You See Ecommerce Metrics in Google Analytics?
- Anatomy of ECommerce Tracking Code
- Important Points about Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics
- Frequently Asked Questions About Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics
What is Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics?
Ecommerce tracking is a feature of Google Analytics through which you can track ecommerce data (like sales amount, number of orders, billing location, average order value, etc) of a website/mobile app in Google Analytics.
If you run/manage an online store/app, you can’t just depend upon the analytics reports provided by your shopping cart. You need Google Analytics Ecommerce tracking set up for your website.
It is only by using Google Analytics ecommerce tracking, you can correlate sales data with website usage data like sessions, bounce rate, traffic source/medium, landing pages, etc.
Such type of correlation analysis is required in order to understand the performance of your landing pages and marketing campaigns. Otherwise, you may never know which landing pages and/or campaigns are driving sales and which are not.
What is Ecommerce Data in Google Analytics?
The ecommerce data in Google Analytics is made up of transaction data and item data.
Transaction Data
Transaction Data provide details about users’ transactions (aka orders) like:
- Transaction ID (or order ID).
- Store or affiliation name.
- Total revenue generated from the transaction (can also include shipping cost and taxes)
- Total shipping cost associated with the transaction
- Total tax associated with the transaction.
Item Data
Item data provides details about a purchased product like:
- Transaction ID (same as in the transaction data)
- Product Name
- Product SKU (or product code).
- Product Category
- Product Price
- Product Quantity
How to set up Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics?
Follow the steps below to set up ecommerce tracking:
Step-1: Sign up for Google Analytics account (if you already don’t have one).
Step-2: Once you have created your Google Analytics account then navigate to https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/
Step-3: Click on the ‘Admin’ link at the bottom left-hand side:
Step-4: Click on the ‘Tracking Info‘ drop-down menu under the ‘Property Column’:
Step-5: Click on the ‘Tracking Code’ link:
Step-6: Copy the Google Analytics tracking code (the Global Site Tag (gtag.js) tracking code) from the box under the section ‘Website Tracking‘:
Step-7: Paste the Google Analytics tracking code on all the pages of your website (in the head section <head>…</head>). If you use a template file then paste the code in the header template file like header.php.
Step-8: Navigate to your website and then navigate to Real Time > Overview report in your Google Analytics account:
If you see the number of active users in your real time overview report than it means, Google Analytics (GA) has been successfully installed on your website. However, if you see 0 number of active users then it means, GA tracking is not correctly installed:
Step-9: Navigate to Conversions > Ecommerce > Overview report:
Whenever you navigate to one of the e-commerce reports of a GA view for which e-commerce tracking is not enabled, you see the message “This report requires ecommerce tracking to be set up for the view“. You would need to enable Ecommerce reporting for each view in which you want to see the ecommerce data.
Step-10: Click on the ‘Admin’ link at the bottom left-hand side:
Step-11: Click on ‘Ecommerce Settings‘ under the view column:
Step-12: Switch on the ‘Enable Ecommerce‘ toggle button and then click on the ‘Save’ button:
You have now successfully enabled Ecommerce reporting for your view. If you now navigate back to Conversions > Ecommerce > Overview report, you would no longer see the message “This report requires ecommerce tracking to be set up for the view“:
However, you still won’t see the e-commerce data because you have not installed e-commerce tracking code on your website.
Just because you have enabled ecommerce tracking reporting in GA does not mean that you have also set up ecommerce tracking. All you have done so far is allowed your GA view to collect and report on ecommerce data.
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Step-13: Integrate your shopping cart (like Shopify) with Google Analytics. Check the help documentation provided by your shopping cart for more details. Following are the help documentation for the most popular shopping carts:
- Setting up Google Analytics on Shopify Store
- Setting up Google Analytics on WooCommerce Store
- Setting up Google Analytics on Magento Store
- Setting up Google Analytics on BigCommerce Store
- Setting up Google Analytics on Drupal Store
- Setting up Google Analytics on Volusion Store
- Setting up Google Analytics on 3dCart Store
Note: Shopping cart vendors generally won’t help you in setting up ecommerce tracking for your website. You would need to hire a developer (who has experience with Google Analytics Development environment) to install ecommerce tracking for you.
Step-14: Hire a Google Analytics developer to add the ecommerce tracking code (provided by Google) on the order confirmation page (generally the ‘thank you’ page).
Here is how the e-commerce tracking code looks like (if you are using analytics.js library):
ga(‘require’, ‘ecommerce’, ‘ecommerce.js’);
ga(‘ecommerce:addTransaction’, {
‘id’: ‘1234’, // Transaction ID. Required.
‘affiliation’: ‘skinny jeans’, // store name.
‘revenue’: ‘28.8’, // total revenue.
‘shipping’: ‘10.00’, // Shipping.
‘tax’: ‘1.89’ // Tax.
});
ga(‘ecommerce:addItem’, {
‘id’: ‘1234’, // Transaction ID. Required. Same as in the transaction data.
‘name’: ‘OKEJeans’, // Product name. Required.
‘sku’: ‘SKJ49’, // Product SKU.
‘category’: ‘Men Jeans’, // Product Category or variation.
‘price’: ‘76.65’, // Product price.
‘quantity’: ‘1’ // Product Quantity.
});
ga(‘ecommerce:send’);
This ecommerce tracking code is usually placed after the following line of code ga(‘create’, ‘UA-123456-12’, ‘auto’); and just before the following code ga(‘send’, ‘pageview’);.in the Google Analytics Tracking Code:
So the whole set up may look like the one below:
<script>
(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i[‘GoogleAnalyticsObject’]=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
})(window,document,’script’,’//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js’,’ga’);
ga(‘create’, ‘UA-123456-12’, ‘auto’);
ga(‘require’, ‘ecommerce’, ‘ecommerce.js’);
ga(‘ecommerce:addTransaction’, {
‘id’: ‘1234’, // Transaction ID. Required.
‘affiliation’: ‘skinny jeans’, // store name.
‘revenue’: ‘28.8’, // total revenue.
‘shipping’: ‘10.00’, // Shipping.
‘tax’: ‘1.89’ // Tax.
});
ga(‘ecommerce:addItem’, {
‘id’: ‘1234’, // Transaction ID. Required. Same as in the transaction data.
‘name’: ‘OKEJeans’, // Product name. Required.
‘sku’: ‘SKJ49’, // Product SKU.
‘category’: ‘Men Jeans’, // Product Category or variation.
‘price’: ‘76.65’, // Product price.
‘quantity’: ‘1’ // Product Quantity.
});
ga(‘ecommerce:send’);
ga(‘send’, ‘pageview’);
</script>
Here the code in bold letters is the ecommerce tracking code. The rest is the Google Analytics tracking code.
However, this code is still not complete. To actually retrieve ecommerce data from your shopping cart, you need to add a server-side script to the code above.
Step-15: Ask your developer to add a server-side script (like PHP, ASP, etc) to your commerce tracking code. Your server-side script should loop through all the products purchased in a transaction and send product data for each of them to the Google Analytics server.
So your actual ecommerce tracking code will look very different once the server-side script is added to it.
For example, here is how your ecommerce tracking may look like, if you used PHP:
<script>
(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i[‘GoogleAnalyticsObject’]=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
})(window,document,’script’,’//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js’,’ga’);
ga(‘create’, ‘UA-123456-12’, ‘auto’);
ga(‘require’, ‘ecommerce’, ‘ecommerce.js’);
<?php
If($_SERVER[SCRIPT_NAME]==/thank-you.php”) {
?>
ga(‘ecommerce:addTransaction’, {
‘id’: ‘<? = $orders[‘order_id’]?>’,
‘affiliation’: ‘<? = $orders[‘store_name’]?>’,
‘revenue’: ‘<? = $orders[‘revenue’]?>’,
‘shipping’: ‘<? = $orders[‘shipping’]?>’,
‘tax’: ‘<? = $orders[‘tax’]?>’
});
<?php
for ($i=0;$n=sizeof($products_array);$i<$n;$i++) {
?>
ga(‘ecommerce:addItem’, {
‘id’: ‘<? = $orders[‘order_id’] ?>’,
‘name’: ‘<? =$products_array[$i][‘name’] ?>’,
‘sku’: ‘<? =$products_array[$i][‘sku’] ?>’,
‘category’: ‘<? =$products_array[$i][‘category’] ?>’,
‘price’: ‘<? =$products_array[$i][‘price’] ?>’,
‘quantity’: ‘<? =$products_array[$i][‘quantity’] ?>’
});
}
?>
ga(‘ecommerce:send’);
ga(‘send’, ‘pageview’);
</script>
Note(1): Do not use this ecommerce tracking code on your website. It is just an example and is not even a complete code.
Note(2): The actual ecommerce tracking code will vary depending upon your CMS and shopping cart.
Step-16: Set up a funnel for your checkout process in Google Analytics. To do this, first determine all of the webpages which make up your shopping cart funnel (including the URL of the order confirmation page).
To learn more about setting up funnels in GA, check out this article: The Geek Guide to Understanding Funnels in Google Analytics
Step-17: Place a test transaction and see whether you are getting the correct ecommerce data in GA reports.
Understanding Shopping Carts and Payment Gateways
In order to understand how ecommerce tracking works, you first need to know about shopping carts and payment gateways.
You can learn about, how shopping carts and payment gateways work and interact with Google Analytics, in this article: Understanding Shopping Carts for analytics and Conversion Optimization
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Ecommerce Conversion Rate
Ecommerce conversion rate is the percentage of sessions that results in ecommerce transactions (in a given time period).
Ecommerce conversion rate = (Total Ecommerce Transactions/Total website sessions) * 100
For e.g. the ecommerce conversion rate in the chart above was calculated as:
= (1,736 transactions / 996,563 sessions) * 100 = 0.17%
Ecommerce Transactions and Transaction IDs
Transaction (or ecommerce transaction) is a purchase order.
For example, 1,736 transactions mean 1,736 purchase orders were placed on the website.
The ecommerce overview report shows the total number of transactions carried out on the website in a specified time period. Each transaction is identified through a unique ID known as transaction ID.
Here, 4419144621 is a transaction ID.
A single transaction can include several products or several units of the same product as a person can buy several products in one transaction or several units of the same product in one transaction. For example, a person can buy an iPhone and an iPad in a single transaction or a person can buy 10 units (or pieces) of iPhone in a single transaction.
Note: The value of transaction ID is of type ‘string’.
Revenue
The revenue that you see in the Ecommerce Overview report is the total revenue.
Total Revenue = Total Product Revenue + Total Tax + Total Shipping
For example, the total revenue in the Ecommerce Overview report was calculated as:
Total Revenue = $188,211.37 (total product revenue) + $47,371.58 (total tax) + $1,274.95 (total shipping) = $236,857.90
Your total revenue figure in the Ecommerce Overview report depends upon how the ecommerce tracking has been setup.
If your client decided to exclude tax and shipping amount from the total revenue, then your total revenue and product revenue amount would be the same.
If the tax information and/or shipping information is not supplied while setting up ecommerce tracking then Google Analytics can’t report such information in its reports and they won’t be included in the computation of total revenue.
Note: The value of revenue is of type ‘currency’.
Average Order Value
Average value or average order value (AOV) is the average value of an ecommerce transaction.
Average Value = Total Revenue/Total Transactions
For example, the AOV in the chart above was calculated as:
AOV = $236,857.90 / 1,736 = $136.44
Note: The value of Average Order Value is of type ‘currency’.
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Unique Purchases
Unique purchase is the total number of times a product or a set of products was a part of a transaction.
There are two categories of unique purchases in Google Analytics:
#1 Total Unique purchases of a set of products
#2 Total Unique purchases of a product.
Note: The total unique purchases of a product are not equal to the total number of units sold for the product in one transaction. For example, the total unique purchases of the first product are 75.
But many people wrongly assume the 75 units of the first product were sold in one transaction. This is not the case.
The 75 figure tells you that the first product was a part of a transaction 75 times. It doesn’t tell you the number of units sold for the product in one transaction.
In order to find the number of units of a product which were sold in one transaction, follow the steps below:
- Click on a product link in the ‘Product Performance’ report (under Conversions > Ecommerce).
- Add ‘transaction ID’ as a ‘secondary dimension.
- Sort the ‘Unique Purchases’ column in decreasing order.
You will now see a report like the one below:
Note: The value of Unique Purchases is of type ‘number’.
Quantity
Quantity is the total number of units sold for a product or set of products. There are two categories of quantities in Google Analytics:
#1 Total number of units sold for a set of products
#2 Total number of units sold for a product.
Note: The value of quantity is of type ‘number’.
Average Quantity
Average quantity is the average number of units sold for a product or set of products in one transaction.
Average Quantity = Quantity / Unique Purchases
For example:
- The average quantity of a set of products is calculated as 3684/3242 = 1.14
- The average quantity of 1st product is calculated as 114/93 = 1.23
- The average quantity of 2nd product is calculated as 62/61 = 1.02
Note: The value of average quantity is of type ‘number’
Product SKU
Stock keeping unit or SKU is a product code that is used to uniquely identify a product.
Note: The value of product SKU is of type ‘string’
Average Price
Average price is the price of a single unit of a product.
Average price of a set of products = Total Product Revenue / Total Quantity = $3,701,278.00 / 45,226 = $81.84
Average price of the first product = price of the single unit of a product = $79
Note: The value of average price is of type ‘currency’
Product Revenue
Product revenue is the total revenue generated from a product or a set of products.
Product Revenue = Quantity * Average Price
In this example,
Total Revenue generated from a set of products is calculated as: 45,226 * $81.84 = $3,701,278.00
Total Revenue generated from the first products is calculated as: 13,281 * $79.00 = $1,049,199.00
Note(1): Product revenue doesn’t include tax and shipping charges.
Note (2): The value of average price is of type ‘currency’
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Per Session Value
Per session value is the average value of a session of your ecommerce website.
Per session value = Total Revenue / Total Sessions
For example, in the chart above,
The per session value for all traffic sources is calculated as: $280,650.01 / 1,182,618 = $0.24
The per session value of the traffic from Google Organic is calculated as: $77,228.80 / 210,212 = $0.37
Higher the per session value, the more valuable the traffic is for your ecommerce business.
Note(1): You can determine per session value through ‘Ecommerce’ Tabs found in various reports.
Note (2): The ‘per session value’ is of type ‘currency’
Where Can You See Ecommerce Metrics in Google Analytics?
You can see ecommerce metrics in various ecommerce reports (under Conversions > Ecommerce) and via the ‘Ecommerce’ explorer tab of many other GA reports:
Anatomy of ECommerce Tracking Code
The ecommerce tracking code is made up of the following four commands:
- ecommerce
- ecommerce:addTransaction
- ecommerce:addItem
- ecommerce:send
‘ecommerce’ command
This command is used to load the ecommerce plugin.
Syntax: ga(‘require’, ‘ecommerce’, ‘ecommerce.js’);
The plugin contains the functionality for ecommerce tracking in GA. You have to load this plugin, otherwise, your ecommerce tracking won’t work.
Note: The ‘ecommerce’ command should always be called after you have created the tracker object and before following, commands are executed: ecommerce:addTransaction, ecommerce:addItem and ecommerce:send
‘ecommerce:addTransaction’ command
This command is used to create a visitor’s transaction and to store all the information about the transaction.
Syntax:
ga(‘ecommerce:addTransaction’, {
‘id’: ‘1234’, // Transaction ID. Required.
‘affiliation’: ‘skinny jeans’, // store name.
‘revenue’: ‘28.8’, // total revenue.
‘shipping’: ‘10.00’, // Shipping.
‘tax’: ‘1.89’ // Tax.
});
‘ecommerce:addItem’ command
This command is used to add a product to a visitor’s transaction and to store all the information about the purchased product.
Syntax:
ga(‘ecommerce:addItem’, {
‘id’: ‘1234’, // Transaction ID. Required. Same as in the transaction data.
‘name’: ‘OKEJeans’, // Product name. Required.
‘sku’: ‘SKJ49’, // Product SKU.
‘category’: ‘Men Jeans’, // Product Category or variation.
‘price’: ‘76.65’, // Product price.
‘quantity’: ‘1’ // Product Quantity.
});
‘ecommerce:send’ command
This command is used to send all of the ecommerce data to the Google Analytics server.
Syntax: ga(‘ecommerce:send’);
Note: without using the command, you can’t send ecommerce data to Google Analytics.
Important Points about Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics
#1 It is common to have data discrepancy between Google Analytics sales data and your shopping cart sales data.
All major pre-built shopping carts have the functionality to handle canceled orders, test orders, promo/discount codes, unfulfilled orders and refund (partial or full).
Google Analytics does not have any such in-built functionality.
Once a user is served an order confirmation page, the ecommerce tracking code is executed and the transaction is recorded by GA. If the user later asks for a refund, cancels the order or the order is not fulfilled then these changes don’t automatically reflect back in GA ecommerce reports.
Thus depending upon the volume of canceled orders, refunds and unfulfilled orders your website gets every day, you may see either small or large data discrepancy between GA sales data and your shopping cart sales data.
Remember GA was never designed to function as accounting software. So do not expect 100% accuracy in sales data.
Since Shopping cart handles sales data much better than GA, so whenever you are in doubt, trust your shopping cart data more.
#2 Test orders can very easily skew your ecommerce data in Google Analytics
It is common for web developers to place test orders while testing an application. But it is not common for them to reverse test transactions in Google Analytics.
All the test orders need to be reversed, otherwise, they can greatly inflate your sales data.
Ask your developer to provide you with a list of all test orders placed on the website, at least once a month and then at least deduct them from your analysis, if you can’t reverse them.
Related Article: Fixing Duplicate, Cancelled, Test orders & Refunds in Google Analytics
#3 Data sampling issues can easily skew your ecommerce data
If your website gets more than 250k sessions a month and you don’t use GA premium, there is a good possibility that your website is suffering from data sampling issues. When GA sample your data badly, you can’t trust the metrics reported by it.
Your ecommerce data from revenue to ecommerce conversion rate could be 10 to 80% off the mark.
Avoid using advanced segments or secondary dimensions during data interpretation when you have got data sampling issues.
Related Article: Google Analytics Data Sampling – Complete Guide
#4 Watch out for Duplicate transactions
This is a very common issue I encounter while doing a GA audit.
A duplicate transaction can take place when an ecommerce tracking code is executed more than once without placing any new order. Duplicate transactions can easily skew your ecommerce data.
To fix the duplicate transaction issues, check out this article: Fixing Duplicate, Cancelled, Test orders & Refunds in Google Analytics
If you want to set up ecommerce tracking in Google Tag Manager then check out the following article: Implementing Ecommerce Tracking via Google Tag Manager
If you are interested in learning about enhanced ecommerce tracking, I have got half a dozen articles for you:
#1 Enhanced Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics – Beginners Guide
#2 Implementing Enhanced Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics – Nerd Guide
#3 Using Enhanced Ecommerce Segments for Remarketing in Google Analytics
#4 Using Cohort Analysis & Enhanced Ecommerce to Understand Users Behavior
#5 Fixing Duplicate, Cancelled, Test Orders and Refunds in Google Analytics
Frequently Asked Questions About Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics
Why do you need ecommerce tracking?
If you run/manage an online store/app, you can’t just depend upon the analytics reports provided by your shopping cart. You need Google Analytics Ecommerce tracking set up for your website. It is only by using Google Analytics ecommerce tracking, you can correlate sales data with website usage data like sessions, bounce rate, traffic source/medium, landing pages, etc.
Such type of correlation analysis is required in order to understand the performance of your website landing pages and marketing campaigns. Otherwise, you may never know which landing pages and/or campaigns are driving sales and which are not.
What is ecommerce conversion rate?
Ecommerce conversion rate is the percentage of sessions which results in ecommerce transactions (in a given time period). Following is the formula to calculate ecommerce conversion rate:
Ecommerce conversion rate = (Total Ecommerce Transactions/Total website sessions) * 100
What is an ecommerce transaction?
Transaction (or ecommerce transaction) is a purchase order. Each transaction is identified through a unique ID known as transaction ID.
A single transaction can include several products or several units of the same product as a person can buy several products in one transaction or several units of the same product in one transaction. For example, a person can buy iPhone and an iPad in a single transaction or a person can buy 10 units (or pieces) of iPhone in a single transaction.
What is average order value?
Average value or average order value (AOV) is the average value of an ecommerce transaction.
Average Value = Total Revenue/Total Transactions
For example, the AOV in the chart above was calculated as:
AOV = $236,857.90 / 1,736 = $136.44
What are unique purchases?
Unique purchase is the total number of times a product or a set of products was a part of a transaction. There are two categories of unique purchases in Google Analytics:
#1 Total Unique purchases of a set of products
#2 Total Unique purchases of a product.
The total unique purchases of a product is not equal to the total number of units sold for the product in one transaction.
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Table of Contents
- What is Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics?
- What is Ecommerce Data in Google Analytics?
- How to set up Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics?
- Understanding Shopping Carts and Payment Gateways
- Ecommerce Conversion Rate
- Ecommerce Transactions and Transaction IDs
- Revenue
- Average Order Value
- Unique Purchases
- Quantity
- Average Quantity
- Product SKU
- Average Price
- Product Revenue
- Per Session Value
- Where Can You See Ecommerce Metrics in Google Analytics?
- Anatomy of ECommerce Tracking Code
- Important Points about Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics
- Frequently Asked Questions About Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics
What is Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics?
Ecommerce tracking is a feature of Google Analytics through which you can track ecommerce data (like sales amount, number of orders, billing location, average order value, etc) of a website/mobile app in Google Analytics.
If you run/manage an online store/app, you can’t just depend upon the analytics reports provided by your shopping cart. You need Google Analytics Ecommerce tracking set up for your website.
It is only by using Google Analytics ecommerce tracking, you can correlate sales data with website usage data like sessions, bounce rate, traffic source/medium, landing pages, etc.
Such type of correlation analysis is required in order to understand the performance of your landing pages and marketing campaigns. Otherwise, you may never know which landing pages and/or campaigns are driving sales and which are not.
What is Ecommerce Data in Google Analytics?
The ecommerce data in Google Analytics is made up of transaction data and item data.
Transaction Data
Transaction Data provide details about users’ transactions (aka orders) like:
- Transaction ID (or order ID).
- Store or affiliation name.
- Total revenue generated from the transaction (can also include shipping cost and taxes)
- Total shipping cost associated with the transaction
- Total tax associated with the transaction.
Item Data
Item data provides details about a purchased product like:
- Transaction ID (same as in the transaction data)
- Product Name
- Product SKU (or product code).
- Product Category
- Product Price
- Product Quantity
How to set up Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics?
Follow the steps below to set up ecommerce tracking:
Step-1: Sign up for Google Analytics account (if you already don’t have one).
Step-2: Once you have created your Google Analytics account then navigate to https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/
Step-3: Click on the ‘Admin’ link at the bottom left-hand side:
Step-4: Click on the ‘Tracking Info‘ drop-down menu under the ‘Property Column’:
Step-5: Click on the ‘Tracking Code’ link:
Step-6: Copy the Google Analytics tracking code (the Global Site Tag (gtag.js) tracking code) from the box under the section ‘Website Tracking‘:
Step-7: Paste the Google Analytics tracking code on all the pages of your website (in the head section <head>…</head>). If you use a template file then paste the code in the header template file like header.php.
Step-8: Navigate to your website and then navigate to Real Time > Overview report in your Google Analytics account:
If you see the number of active users in your real time overview report than it means, Google Analytics (GA) has been successfully installed on your website. However, if you see 0 number of active users then it means, GA tracking is not correctly installed:
Step-9: Navigate to Conversions > Ecommerce > Overview report:
Whenever you navigate to one of the e-commerce reports of a GA view for which e-commerce tracking is not enabled, you see the message “This report requires ecommerce tracking to be set up for the view“. You would need to enable Ecommerce reporting for each view in which you want to see the ecommerce data.
Step-10: Click on the ‘Admin’ link at the bottom left-hand side:
Step-11: Click on ‘Ecommerce Settings‘ under the view column:
Step-12: Switch on the ‘Enable Ecommerce‘ toggle button and then click on the ‘Save’ button:
You have now successfully enabled Ecommerce reporting for your view. If you now navigate back to Conversions > Ecommerce > Overview report, you would no longer see the message “This report requires ecommerce tracking to be set up for the view“:
However, you still won’t see the e-commerce data because you have not installed e-commerce tracking code on your website.
Just because you have enabled ecommerce tracking reporting in GA does not mean that you have also set up ecommerce tracking. All you have done so far is allowed your GA view to collect and report on ecommerce data.
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Step-13: Integrate your shopping cart (like Shopify) with Google Analytics. Check the help documentation provided by your shopping cart for more details. Following are the help documentation for the most popular shopping carts:
- Setting up Google Analytics on Shopify Store
- Setting up Google Analytics on WooCommerce Store
- Setting up Google Analytics on Magento Store
- Setting up Google Analytics on BigCommerce Store
- Setting up Google Analytics on Drupal Store
- Setting up Google Analytics on Volusion Store
- Setting up Google Analytics on 3dCart Store
Note: Shopping cart vendors generally won’t help you in setting up ecommerce tracking for your website. You would need to hire a developer (who has experience with Google Analytics Development environment) to install ecommerce tracking for you.
Step-14: Hire a Google Analytics developer to add the ecommerce tracking code (provided by Google) on the order confirmation page (generally the ‘thank you’ page).
Here is how the e-commerce tracking code looks like (if you are using analytics.js library):
ga(‘require’, ‘ecommerce’, ‘ecommerce.js’);
ga(‘ecommerce:addTransaction’, {
‘id’: ‘1234’, // Transaction ID. Required.
‘affiliation’: ‘skinny jeans’, // store name.
‘revenue’: ‘28.8’, // total revenue.
‘shipping’: ‘10.00’, // Shipping.
‘tax’: ‘1.89’ // Tax.
});
ga(‘ecommerce:addItem’, {
‘id’: ‘1234’, // Transaction ID. Required. Same as in the transaction data.
‘name’: ‘OKEJeans’, // Product name. Required.
‘sku’: ‘SKJ49’, // Product SKU.
‘category’: ‘Men Jeans’, // Product Category or variation.
‘price’: ‘76.65’, // Product price.
‘quantity’: ‘1’ // Product Quantity.
});
ga(‘ecommerce:send’);
This ecommerce tracking code is usually placed after the following line of code ga(‘create’, ‘UA-123456-12’, ‘auto’); and just before the following code ga(‘send’, ‘pageview’);.in the Google Analytics Tracking Code:
So the whole set up may look like the one below:
<script>
(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i[‘GoogleAnalyticsObject’]=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
})(window,document,’script’,’//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js’,’ga’);
ga(‘create’, ‘UA-123456-12’, ‘auto’);
ga(‘require’, ‘ecommerce’, ‘ecommerce.js’);
ga(‘ecommerce:addTransaction’, {
‘id’: ‘1234’, // Transaction ID. Required.
‘affiliation’: ‘skinny jeans’, // store name.
‘revenue’: ‘28.8’, // total revenue.
‘shipping’: ‘10.00’, // Shipping.
‘tax’: ‘1.89’ // Tax.
});
ga(‘ecommerce:addItem’, {
‘id’: ‘1234’, // Transaction ID. Required. Same as in the transaction data.
‘name’: ‘OKEJeans’, // Product name. Required.
‘sku’: ‘SKJ49’, // Product SKU.
‘category’: ‘Men Jeans’, // Product Category or variation.
‘price’: ‘76.65’, // Product price.
‘quantity’: ‘1’ // Product Quantity.
});
ga(‘ecommerce:send’);
ga(‘send’, ‘pageview’);
</script>
Here the code in bold letters is the ecommerce tracking code. The rest is the Google Analytics tracking code.
However, this code is still not complete. To actually retrieve ecommerce data from your shopping cart, you need to add a server-side script to the code above.
Step-15: Ask your developer to add a server-side script (like PHP, ASP, etc) to your commerce tracking code. Your server-side script should loop through all the products purchased in a transaction and send product data for each of them to the Google Analytics server.
So your actual ecommerce tracking code will look very different once the server-side script is added to it.
For example, here is how your ecommerce tracking may look like, if you used PHP:
<script>
(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i[‘GoogleAnalyticsObject’]=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
})(window,document,’script’,’//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js’,’ga’);
ga(‘create’, ‘UA-123456-12’, ‘auto’);
ga(‘require’, ‘ecommerce’, ‘ecommerce.js’);
<?php
If($_SERVER[SCRIPT_NAME]==/thank-you.php”) {
?>
ga(‘ecommerce:addTransaction’, {
‘id’: ‘<? = $orders[‘order_id’]?>’,
‘affiliation’: ‘<? = $orders[‘store_name’]?>’,
‘revenue’: ‘<? = $orders[‘revenue’]?>’,
‘shipping’: ‘<? = $orders[‘shipping’]?>’,
‘tax’: ‘<? = $orders[‘tax’]?>’
});
<?php
for ($i=0;$n=sizeof($products_array);$i<$n;$i++) {
?>
ga(‘ecommerce:addItem’, {
‘id’: ‘<? = $orders[‘order_id’] ?>’,
‘name’: ‘<? =$products_array[$i][‘name’] ?>’,
‘sku’: ‘<? =$products_array[$i][‘sku’] ?>’,
‘category’: ‘<? =$products_array[$i][‘category’] ?>’,
‘price’: ‘<? =$products_array[$i][‘price’] ?>’,
‘quantity’: ‘<? =$products_array[$i][‘quantity’] ?>’
});
}
?>
ga(‘ecommerce:send’);
ga(‘send’, ‘pageview’);
</script>
Note(1): Do not use this ecommerce tracking code on your website. It is just an example and is not even a complete code.
Note(2): The actual ecommerce tracking code will vary depending upon your CMS and shopping cart.
Step-16: Set up a funnel for your checkout process in Google Analytics. To do this, first determine all of the webpages which make up your shopping cart funnel (including the URL of the order confirmation page).
To learn more about setting up funnels in GA, check out this article: The Geek Guide to Understanding Funnels in Google Analytics
Step-17: Place a test transaction and see whether you are getting the correct ecommerce data in GA reports.
Understanding Shopping Carts and Payment Gateways
In order to understand how ecommerce tracking works, you first need to know about shopping carts and payment gateways.
You can learn about, how shopping carts and payment gateways work and interact with Google Analytics, in this article: Understanding Shopping Carts for analytics and Conversion Optimization
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Ecommerce Conversion Rate
Ecommerce conversion rate is the percentage of sessions that results in ecommerce transactions (in a given time period).
Ecommerce conversion rate = (Total Ecommerce Transactions/Total website sessions) * 100
For e.g. the ecommerce conversion rate in the chart above was calculated as:
= (1,736 transactions / 996,563 sessions) * 100 = 0.17%
Ecommerce Transactions and Transaction IDs
Transaction (or ecommerce transaction) is a purchase order.
For example, 1,736 transactions mean 1,736 purchase orders were placed on the website.
The ecommerce overview report shows the total number of transactions carried out on the website in a specified time period. Each transaction is identified through a unique ID known as transaction ID.
Here, 4419144621 is a transaction ID.
A single transaction can include several products or several units of the same product as a person can buy several products in one transaction or several units of the same product in one transaction. For example, a person can buy an iPhone and an iPad in a single transaction or a person can buy 10 units (or pieces) of iPhone in a single transaction.
Note: The value of transaction ID is of type ‘string’.
Revenue
The revenue that you see in the Ecommerce Overview report is the total revenue.
Total Revenue = Total Product Revenue + Total Tax + Total Shipping
For example, the total revenue in the Ecommerce Overview report was calculated as:
Total Revenue = $188,211.37 (total product revenue) + $47,371.58 (total tax) + $1,274.95 (total shipping) = $236,857.90
Your total revenue figure in the Ecommerce Overview report depends upon how the ecommerce tracking has been setup.
If your client decided to exclude tax and shipping amount from the total revenue, then your total revenue and product revenue amount would be the same.
If the tax information and/or shipping information is not supplied while setting up ecommerce tracking then Google Analytics can’t report such information in its reports and they won’t be included in the computation of total revenue.
Note: The value of revenue is of type ‘currency’.
Average Order Value
Average value or average order value (AOV) is the average value of an ecommerce transaction.
Average Value = Total Revenue/Total Transactions
For example, the AOV in the chart above was calculated as:
AOV = $236,857.90 / 1,736 = $136.44
Note: The value of Average Order Value is of type ‘currency’.
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Unique Purchases
Unique purchase is the total number of times a product or a set of products was a part of a transaction.
There are two categories of unique purchases in Google Analytics:
#1 Total Unique purchases of a set of products
#2 Total Unique purchases of a product.
Note: The total unique purchases of a product are not equal to the total number of units sold for the product in one transaction. For example, the total unique purchases of the first product are 75.
But many people wrongly assume the 75 units of the first product were sold in one transaction. This is not the case.
The 75 figure tells you that the first product was a part of a transaction 75 times. It doesn’t tell you the number of units sold for the product in one transaction.
In order to find the number of units of a product which were sold in one transaction, follow the steps below:
- Click on a product link in the ‘Product Performance’ report (under Conversions > Ecommerce).
- Add ‘transaction ID’ as a ‘secondary dimension.
- Sort the ‘Unique Purchases’ column in decreasing order.
You will now see a report like the one below:
Note: The value of Unique Purchases is of type ‘number’.
Quantity
Quantity is the total number of units sold for a product or set of products. There are two categories of quantities in Google Analytics:
#1 Total number of units sold for a set of products
#2 Total number of units sold for a product.
Note: The value of quantity is of type ‘number’.
Average Quantity
Average quantity is the average number of units sold for a product or set of products in one transaction.
Average Quantity = Quantity / Unique Purchases
For example:
- The average quantity of a set of products is calculated as 3684/3242 = 1.14
- The average quantity of 1st product is calculated as 114/93 = 1.23
- The average quantity of 2nd product is calculated as 62/61 = 1.02
Note: The value of average quantity is of type ‘number’
Product SKU
Stock keeping unit or SKU is a product code that is used to uniquely identify a product.
Note: The value of product SKU is of type ‘string’
Average Price
Average price is the price of a single unit of a product.
Average price of a set of products = Total Product Revenue / Total Quantity = $3,701,278.00 / 45,226 = $81.84
Average price of the first product = price of the single unit of a product = $79
Note: The value of average price is of type ‘currency’
Product Revenue
Product revenue is the total revenue generated from a product or a set of products.
Product Revenue = Quantity * Average Price
In this example,
Total Revenue generated from a set of products is calculated as: 45,226 * $81.84 = $3,701,278.00
Total Revenue generated from the first products is calculated as: 13,281 * $79.00 = $1,049,199.00
Note(1): Product revenue doesn’t include tax and shipping charges.
Note (2): The value of average price is of type ‘currency’
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Per Session Value
Per session value is the average value of a session of your ecommerce website.
Per session value = Total Revenue / Total Sessions
For example, in the chart above,
The per session value for all traffic sources is calculated as: $280,650.01 / 1,182,618 = $0.24
The per session value of the traffic from Google Organic is calculated as: $77,228.80 / 210,212 = $0.37
Higher the per session value, the more valuable the traffic is for your ecommerce business.
Note(1): You can determine per session value through ‘Ecommerce’ Tabs found in various reports.
Note (2): The ‘per session value’ is of type ‘currency’
Where Can You See Ecommerce Metrics in Google Analytics?
You can see ecommerce metrics in various ecommerce reports (under Conversions > Ecommerce) and via the ‘Ecommerce’ explorer tab of many other GA reports:
Anatomy of ECommerce Tracking Code
The ecommerce tracking code is made up of the following four commands:
- ecommerce
- ecommerce:addTransaction
- ecommerce:addItem
- ecommerce:send
‘ecommerce’ command
This command is used to load the ecommerce plugin.
Syntax: ga(‘require’, ‘ecommerce’, ‘ecommerce.js’);
The plugin contains the functionality for ecommerce tracking in GA. You have to load this plugin, otherwise, your ecommerce tracking won’t work.
Note: The ‘ecommerce’ command should always be called after you have created the tracker object and before following, commands are executed: ecommerce:addTransaction, ecommerce:addItem and ecommerce:send
‘ecommerce:addTransaction’ command
This command is used to create a visitor’s transaction and to store all the information about the transaction.
Syntax:
ga(‘ecommerce:addTransaction’, {
‘id’: ‘1234’, // Transaction ID. Required.
‘affiliation’: ‘skinny jeans’, // store name.
‘revenue’: ‘28.8’, // total revenue.
‘shipping’: ‘10.00’, // Shipping.
‘tax’: ‘1.89’ // Tax.
});
‘ecommerce:addItem’ command
This command is used to add a product to a visitor’s transaction and to store all the information about the purchased product.
Syntax:
ga(‘ecommerce:addItem’, {
‘id’: ‘1234’, // Transaction ID. Required. Same as in the transaction data.
‘name’: ‘OKEJeans’, // Product name. Required.
‘sku’: ‘SKJ49’, // Product SKU.
‘category’: ‘Men Jeans’, // Product Category or variation.
‘price’: ‘76.65’, // Product price.
‘quantity’: ‘1’ // Product Quantity.
});
‘ecommerce:send’ command
This command is used to send all of the ecommerce data to the Google Analytics server.
Syntax: ga(‘ecommerce:send’);
Note: without using the command, you can’t send ecommerce data to Google Analytics.
Important Points about Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics
#1 It is common to have data discrepancy between Google Analytics sales data and your shopping cart sales data.
All major pre-built shopping carts have the functionality to handle canceled orders, test orders, promo/discount codes, unfulfilled orders and refund (partial or full).
Google Analytics does not have any such in-built functionality.
Once a user is served an order confirmation page, the ecommerce tracking code is executed and the transaction is recorded by GA. If the user later asks for a refund, cancels the order or the order is not fulfilled then these changes don’t automatically reflect back in GA ecommerce reports.
Thus depending upon the volume of canceled orders, refunds and unfulfilled orders your website gets every day, you may see either small or large data discrepancy between GA sales data and your shopping cart sales data.
Remember GA was never designed to function as accounting software. So do not expect 100% accuracy in sales data.
Since Shopping cart handles sales data much better than GA, so whenever you are in doubt, trust your shopping cart data more.
#2 Test orders can very easily skew your ecommerce data in Google Analytics
It is common for web developers to place test orders while testing an application. But it is not common for them to reverse test transactions in Google Analytics.
All the test orders need to be reversed, otherwise, they can greatly inflate your sales data.
Ask your developer to provide you with a list of all test orders placed on the website, at least once a month and then at least deduct them from your analysis, if you can’t reverse them.
Related Article: Fixing Duplicate, Cancelled, Test orders & Refunds in Google Analytics
#3 Data sampling issues can easily skew your ecommerce data
If your website gets more than 250k sessions a month and you don’t use GA premium, there is a good possibility that your website is suffering from data sampling issues. When GA sample your data badly, you can’t trust the metrics reported by it.
Your ecommerce data from revenue to ecommerce conversion rate could be 10 to 80% off the mark.
Avoid using advanced segments or secondary dimensions during data interpretation when you have got data sampling issues.
Related Article: Google Analytics Data Sampling – Complete Guide
#4 Watch out for Duplicate transactions
This is a very common issue I encounter while doing a GA audit.
A duplicate transaction can take place when an ecommerce tracking code is executed more than once without placing any new order. Duplicate transactions can easily skew your ecommerce data.
To fix the duplicate transaction issues, check out this article: Fixing Duplicate, Cancelled, Test orders & Refunds in Google Analytics
If you want to set up ecommerce tracking in Google Tag Manager then check out the following article: Implementing Ecommerce Tracking via Google Tag Manager
If you are interested in learning about enhanced ecommerce tracking, I have got half a dozen articles for you:
#1 Enhanced Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics – Beginners Guide
#2 Implementing Enhanced Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics – Nerd Guide
#3 Using Enhanced Ecommerce Segments for Remarketing in Google Analytics
#4 Using Cohort Analysis & Enhanced Ecommerce to Understand Users Behavior
#5 Fixing Duplicate, Cancelled, Test Orders and Refunds in Google Analytics
Frequently Asked Questions About Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics
Why do you need ecommerce tracking?
If you run/manage an online store/app, you can’t just depend upon the analytics reports provided by your shopping cart. You need Google Analytics Ecommerce tracking set up for your website. It is only by using Google Analytics ecommerce tracking, you can correlate sales data with website usage data like sessions, bounce rate, traffic source/medium, landing pages, etc.
Such type of correlation analysis is required in order to understand the performance of your website landing pages and marketing campaigns. Otherwise, you may never know which landing pages and/or campaigns are driving sales and which are not.
What is ecommerce conversion rate?
Ecommerce conversion rate is the percentage of sessions which results in ecommerce transactions (in a given time period). Following is the formula to calculate ecommerce conversion rate:
Ecommerce conversion rate = (Total Ecommerce Transactions/Total website sessions) * 100
What is an ecommerce transaction?
Transaction (or ecommerce transaction) is a purchase order. Each transaction is identified through a unique ID known as transaction ID.
A single transaction can include several products or several units of the same product as a person can buy several products in one transaction or several units of the same product in one transaction. For example, a person can buy iPhone and an iPad in a single transaction or a person can buy 10 units (or pieces) of iPhone in a single transaction.
What is average order value?
Average value or average order value (AOV) is the average value of an ecommerce transaction.
Average Value = Total Revenue/Total Transactions
For example, the AOV in the chart above was calculated as:
AOV = $236,857.90 / 1,736 = $136.44
What are unique purchases?
Unique purchase is the total number of times a product or a set of products was a part of a transaction. There are two categories of unique purchases in Google Analytics:
#1 Total Unique purchases of a set of products
#2 Total Unique purchases of a product.
The total unique purchases of a product is not equal to the total number of units sold for the product in one transaction.
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