Having an eCommerce store is just not enough to touch the skies of success with your business. You need an eCommerce store which is completely in your control, and you can apply your business strategies on it. Strategies like product prices, paid advertisements, paid search ads, affiliates and much more.
Magento is one such eCommerce platform which gives you an unlimited control over your eCommerce store. However, to apply the strategies mentioned above, you will want to have some analytic about them, so that you can always know if you are moving in a right or wrong direction.
Not a better free tool than Google Analytics (GA) is there for unveiling the deepest insights about your store. In this article, we are going to guide you how you can integrate your Magento Google Analytics to uncover so many insights about your store and the business itself.
Table of Contents
Why Google Analytics?
Google Analytics lets you track from simplest to the most complex metrics on your store. Knowing the statuses of these metrics will help you plan almost everything you want to do with your business.
For example, you can track the Traffic Sources to find out how visitors are landing on your store. Also, you can use the traffic sources data to decide which source is more important from your business perspective and later, you can make plans to improve the traffic on that front.
You can also track Bounce Rate to discover the non-performing pages of your website and can make efforts to improve their performances.
There are tons of more metrics that Google Analytics can track on your store to help you out in almost every situation. So here is the step by step guide prepared for your Magento Google Analytics integration.
Sign up for Google Analytics
Step 1: If you have not signed up for Google Analytics yet, you can do it from the Google Analytics website. Otherwise, you can directly sign in if you are already registered.
To Sign up, on Google Analytics page, click on the “Analytics” link given at the top left corner of header menu.
Step 2: On next page, Click on “SIGN UP FOR FREE” button at top right corner.
Step 3: Again on the next page, click on the “Sign Up” button.
After the sign up is complete, you will now need to connect your Magento store with your Google Analytics Account. That is to configure your store on the GA panel so that it can start tracking it.
Connection Setup- Magento store Google Analytics
To connect your Magento store with the Google Analytics, there are two primary configurations required:
1. Configure your New Account on Google Analytics
2. Configure Google Analytics on your Store
Configure your New Account on Google Analytics
Step 4: After signing into your GA account, Click on “Admin” link at the bottom left, below the list of reports in the report navigation.
Step 5: In the ACCOUNT column on the page, select Create a new account from the menu.
Step 6: On the next page, you will get two options to select from- Web site or Mobile app. Click on the Web site since your Magento store is a website, not a mobile App.
Step 7: Fill the form with your Account Name, Website Name, Website URL, and select an Industry Category and your current Reporting Time Zone.
PS: While entering the URL, choose the protocol standard (http:// or https://) depending on your store. Enter the URL without any special characters in it. That is, use www.example.com, not www.example.com/).
Step 8: Under Data Sharing Options, select the boxes next to the options that you want.
Step 9: Now, click on the Get Tracking ID button on the bottom. You will be asked to accept the terms and conditions, accept it by clicking on “I Accept.”
Step 10: If everything was entered correctly, your store would be connected to Google Analytics now, and you will get the Tracking ID and Code. Copy the tracking ID as we will need it in our next step.
Configure Magento store Google Analytics
Step 11: Log into your Magento Admin panel. Navigate to System>>Configuration.
Step 12: On the configuration page, scroll down till you find Google API under the SALES tab. Click on Google API.
Step 13: In Google API settings, enter the following details as specified:
Enable: Make it YES
Type: Google Analytics (You might not find this setting in older Magento versions)
Account Number: Enter the Tracking Id that you have copied in step 9.
Keep the rest settings as same and click on Save Config button on upper right corner.
Finally
That’s it. You have now successfully configured your Magento store to be tracked by the Google Analytics. To verify the same, go to your Google Analytics account, and you will see the latest metrics tracked so far.
One step further
This is quite a simple way to use Magento Google Analytics on your store. Now that your store is ready with GA, you need to visit your GA account very often to see the latest tracking and report. If this sounds tiring to you, there is a way to bring the Google Analytics dashboard on your Magento Dashboard itself.
The Google Analytics Enhanced E-commerce extension implements Google Analytics (universal.js) on your Magento admin panel. With it, you will get a Google Analytics Dashboard on your Admin panel to provide the latest GA statistics on your Magento administration console itself. It makes the analytics quicker and hassle-free.
Author Bio: Ethan Roy is a Magento extension developer at knowband with years of experience on various eCommerce developments. He loves to share the knowledge with his readers and regularly writes about various eCommerce and Magento related topics.