Yes, if you are not leveraging Google Analytics properly, then you are doing a great disservice to your brand and storefront.
Google Analytics came into being in 2005, and since then, it has been providing reliable data for websites in all the verticals. Google Analytics is one of the most important tools, and businesses need to keep a tab on it to beat the competition in their niche. There is no doubt that all websites should use Google Analytics, but if you have an online store, it becomes more important for you to leverage Google Analytics.
So, why is Google Analytics important for e-commerce businesses?
If you want your online store to do well, then you need the data the most because e-commerce business flourishes on data. Accurate data in the e-commerce industry can help you scale new heights. Conversely, misinterpreted data can do a lot of damage to your e-commerce business.
You can use Google Analytics to analyze the success of your online store and develop smart strategies that also help you drive sales.
But it is important for businesses to know how to use Google Analytics. Here are seven ways to use Google Analytics which helps you to increase sales.
7 ways to use Google Analytics to increase your e-commerce sales
- It helps you familiarise with your buyer’s journey – Before your buyers finally decide to purchase from you, they go through a step-by-step process. The buyer’s journey is different for different businesses.
Buyer’s journey generally starts with personalised customer service. The duration of each buyer’s journey differs from the other, but all of them follow a certain path.
Throughout their journey, your buyers develop some pain points (queries) which you need to address to satisfy them. You need to follow a structured guide to know what the pain points are so that you resolve their queries satisfactorily.
Personalized customer service is when your prospects think that they are being looked after at every stage of their journey.
But how does Google Analytics help you here?
The data from Google Analytics helps you find out the touchpoints where your customers stop engaging with your website. So, what can you do to bring back these clients? The Behaviour Flow report helps you address the problem. From this report, you can find out the point where the engagement comes to an end.
It is possible to filter by Source or Medium to find out your customer’s journey based on channel. Move to the Behaviour Flow report and change the drop-down in the first column to alter the results.
Next, check the Starting Pages section and first interaction column. You will get to know from this report the stage till which your buyers were with you. Study this report to learn about the touchpoints and try to resolve the problem, especially those from where most of your customers are dropping off. The exercise will help you enhance user engagement and improve conversions.
Based on what each channel shows you, you can tailor your content so that you meet your customers where they need you the most.
- It helps you optimize content with on-site search – Customers these days want value for every penny they spend. And, if you don’t provide them value, then they will not hesitate to desert you.
With its Search Term report, Google Analytics helps you learn what exactly your visitors are searching for on your site. It is not difficult for you to find out the exact words, products, keywords, and content that your customers are using.In case you are not analyzing this report, then you are missing big time on valuable data. The data can also help you improve your search engine rankings.
When you analyze the Search Terms report, you can easily get to know what your customers want which can help you tailor your content accordingly.
- It helps you learn more about your customer’s interest – It is extremely important for you to know what your customers want and things that interest them. With its Affinity Categories report, Google Analytics provides insight into your customers’ interests. You can get these interests by demographic.
When you know what your customers want and things they are interested in, it becomes much easier for you to make a sale. The data here can help you understand how you need to position your brand according to the interests of your customers.
Per the interests of your customers, you can create better content and personalize marketing.
- It allows you to track product performance – One of the ways Google Analytics help increase your conversion rates is to track product performance. It is important for e-commerce businesses to know which of their products are selling more and those that are not doing well among the visitors. And, with Google Analytics in place, you have the Product Performance section which helps you to analyze user interactions with products. The report helps you understand which of your products are selling more. You can, therefore, adopt ways to increase the performance of other products that are not doing so well in your store.
You can break down the product sales performance by dimension – by product name, category, brand, or stock-keeping unit (SKU).
For example, in the report, if one of your most popular products show a substantial dip in sales and another product shows a significant increase, then you need to find out the reason for the sudden drop and increase in sale and address the issue.You can check various product metrics like revenue, quantity, unique purchase, average price and quantity, card to detail rate, and product refund amount. Do have a look at products with a high total refund amount and if there are satisfaction issues, then you need to resolve them to increase your sales.
- It also lets you assess the duration by which your leads convert – It is important for you to learn what your buyers think during their purchase journey. With Google Analytics in place, you don’t need to do any guesswork. Its Path Length report allows you to find out precisely how many interactions it takes before your customers make a purchase. Also, you can find out the conversion values for every path length. With these reports in place, you can determine whether you need to increase the duration of your marketing campaign or you should focus your efforts somewhere else.
- Find out on-site engagement – It is important for businesses in the e-commerce industry to know how their prospects engage with their site. And, your landing pages can help you find out on-site engagement pretty effectively. The Landing Pages report gives you a statistical view of how much time your visitors are spending on your site.
The report allows you to see the duration and bounce rates for all your pages, and you get to know which pages get more user engagement and those that are not providing sufficient value to your visitors. Since bounce rates have can impact your ranking on the SERPs, it is in your interest to pay attention to this report.You can use this report to improve your landing pages, enhance your ranking, and increase user engagement.
- Find out the customer value – Lifetime Value report was recently added to the arsenal of Google Analytics. Businesses are generally aware that it is worth investing in a returning customer because repeat customers are a better bet in comparison to the new ones. But it is also important for businesses to know the worth of their customers so that they can accordingly allocate their resources to cater to the needs of their customers.
And, that is what the Lifetime Value report tells you about your customers. It tells you the value of each customer throughout their journey with your business. It tells you the lifetime value of your customers acquired through various channels like email, social, search, etc.
Also, with Google Analytics, you can view the Average Time on Page stat which helps you to improve your content so that your visitors start spending adequate time on your site.
Moreover, Google Analytics has a specialized feature that provides data for every e-commerce site which helps you in streamlining your marketing efforts and creating effective sales strategies.
If you have an online storefront and you want to boost your e-commerce sales, you should get in touch with vStacks Infotech now. We have been in the digital world for long, and we know what it takes to formulate a comprehensive strategy to boost your sales. You can also contact us if you are facing hosting issues for your e-commerce storefront.
