Google Analytics is a free tool that allows you to obtain statistics from your website or online store to understand user behavior. This information is presented through a very intuitive interface and through reports.
With this guide on Google Analytics you will be able to create your account, link it to your account and make the necessary configurations so as not to miss any relevant data from your sales website.
Cheer up to explore this powerful platform! It’s much easier than it seems And, although so much information can be overwhelming, you will learn to identify the key reports that will help you consolidate your online business.
What is Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a statistical data platform that allows understanding the behavior of users who browse a website, and even a mobile application.
With this tool you will be able to know:
- What are the general characteristics of the users who visit your e-commerce;
- the amount of sales generated and through which channels or campaigns they were made;
- in which step of the purchase process the users leave the virtual store;
- which countries or regions the sales come from;
- the most visited pages of the site;
- and much more information!
It is important to note that this data is anonymous, that is, you will not be able to know which people were the ones who carried out a certain action. The objective is to analyze the behavior of users at a general level.
How to use Google Analytics
To start using Google Analytics you have to follow these steps:
1. Enter the and click on ‘Start for free’:
2. Next, click on ‘Start measuring’:
3. Then, fill in all your account information:
4. Finally, copy the tracking ID and, if you use Tiendanube, you just have to paste it in your store administrator. Therefore, you do not need to contact your webmaster or have technical knowledge. Later we will show you the details of the integration of Google Analytics with Tiendanube!
If you don’t use Tiendanube, copy that same code and paste it on all the pages of your site before tags .
Once the code is installed, the tool will start analyzing the traffic information. Remember that you will not be able to measure the data prior to the date of installation of the code.
How to integrate Analytics with Tiendanube
After copying the tracking ID from Google Analytics, you have to do the following:
1. Go to ‘Settings’ > ‘External codes within the administrator of your Tiendanube’.
2. In the ‘Google Analytics’ section, paste the tracking code.
3. Click ‘Save Changes’ at the bottom of the screen.
4. Finally, on the External Codes page, choose the option you prefer to measure your conversions, that is, your sales:
You will see two options:
- The order is marked as paid, that is, Google Analytics will record the sales once the payment of the order is confirmed; therefore, it will discard those orders in which the payment is pending.
- The check out is completed, which means that Google Analytics will record a purchase every time a user completes all the steps of the check out of your store, regardless of whether or not the payment is confirmed at the time.
5. After choosing the option you prefer, click ‘Save Changes’ at the bottom of the page.
👉 If you have doubts about it, don’t hesitate to review our tutorials.
Analytics Basics
This section is kind of glossary with the most used terms of Google Analytics. Keep it handy and consult it while you familiarize yourself with the platform.
The first thing you have to do is identify drivers through which you can navigate within the tool. They are,
Reports: Found on the left, grouped into topic blocks. The most relevant are Audience, Acquisition, Behavior and Conversions.
segments: At the top, in the middle, different customer segments can be selected for comparison (eg, mobile vs. desktop visits, new visitors vs. returning visitors, etc.).
variables: It’s under ‘Segments’. Allows you to select the variable to be displayed on the graph and immediately next to it you can choose a second variable to compare (for example, sessions vs. average duration of the session).
Date: at the top right you can choose the period to analyze.
Definition of the main metrics
Now let’s see, in general terms, what the main metrics that the platform shows us refer to.
Visitor: is the natural person who accesses your website through any device. The first time a visitor accesses your website, a cookies unique (a kind of mini file with data) which serves to identify that visitor.
The visitor can be daily, monthly or yearly. In this context, it is important that you bear in mind that there are also so-called “recurring visitors”, that is, those who have accessed the website on several occasions.
Visit: occur when a user or a robot (an automated program) arrives at your website. The same visitor can access your website several times and, each time he does so, he counts as a different visit. Keep in mind that visits are also called “sessions.”
pageviews: the page views, or simply “views”, are the pages that the visitor accesses within the website they are browsing. Error pages and pages viewed by robots are not usually taken into account as page views.
bounce rate: This is a session where the user visited a single page and exited without interacting with any other pages. Despite what many people believe, this metric does not take into account the time the user spent on the site.
Average session duration: consists of the total duration of all sessions (in seconds) divided by the number of sessions. To understand the particularities of this metric, access the .
Channels: refers to the source of traffic through which users arrived at a website. I know which are the best known.
Objectives: are the actions we want users to perform; in the case of an online store, the payment can be configured as the objective. Read on to learn how to enable this feature in your Google Analytics!
What reports do I have to analyze to boost my online store
As you explore the platform, you will discover endless reports and Google adds many more.
However, there are 4 Google Analytics reports that you have to look at frequently:
1. Audience > Overview: ideal to understand the characteristics of the people who visit the site.
2. Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels: To see where people are coming to the site from and how they behave based on the channel they come from.
3. Conversions > Goals > Overview: To understand how the goals you set up within Analytics are being met.
4. Conversions > Ecommerce > Overview: to analyze the sales of your business.
Here we tell you in detail how to use each report:
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How to connect Google Sheets with Analytics to cross data
If you are a fan of spreadsheets or simply want to relate the most important data of your business but dashboard of Google Analytics do not allow it easily, then this step by step is for you.
For connect Google Sheets with Google Analyticsyou have to:
– Enter Google Drive:
– Click on ‘New’ and select ‘Google Sheets’:
– Go to ‘Plugins’ and click ‘Download Plugins’:
– Write ‘Google Analytics’ in the search engine, select the plugin and install it:
– When it is installed, you have to go to Plugins > Google Analytics > Create new report:
– When you click, a tab will appear where you have to write the name of the project and select the account, property and view of your Google Analytics account from which you want to extract the data. Also, you have to specify what metrics you want to see:
– When you press the ‘Create report’ button, a new sheet with the name of ‘Report Configuration’ will appear. Here you will configure, for example, the time period of the data you want to extract from Analytics. To see the sheet with the results, delete the number ‘1000’ that appears by default:
– Then you have to go to Plugins > Google Analytics > Run Reports:
– When finished, another sheet will be automatically created with all this data and the name you chose for the report:
👉If you want to know more details about this functionality, access the (in English).
How to set up goals, funnel and e-commerce
Objectives
As we discussed earlier, goals are those goals that we want users to achieve.
To configure this variable, you have to:
- Access the administration panel in your Google Analytics account;
- select the view in which you want to create your objectives and then click on ‘Objectives’;
- click ‘+ New target’;
- configure a model;
- define a name for this goal and establish what parameters will be used to measure it.
conversion funnel
The funnel o Conversion funnel is a term used to group the steps a person takes to accomplish a goal determined on a website (in this case, an online store).
When you’re on the goal creation page, enter the final URL that the user needs to reach to complete a purchase and activate the funnel.
In this step, you have to specify which pages of the tour the user is going to navigate through. Define a name for each step and, in the ‘Screen/page’ section, insert the final part of the URL, without the domain.
👉 Here we leave you and how to view them later in Google Analytics.
electronic commerce
Ecommerce reports show the purchase activity recorded by your online store. Therefore, you have to configure it as follows:
- Go to Google Analytics and select the ‘Manage’ option;
- in the ‘View’ column, I chose the ‘Ecommerce Settings’ option;
- activate e-commerce and enhanced reporting buttons;
- configure the steps of the conversion funnel generating the labels of Shipping and billing informationY Shipping and payment methods;
- press ‘Save’.
👉 Here you will be able to access the step by step for and the example of a Tiendanube that made the configuration.
Google Analytics and social networks
Although it is true that each social network has its own statistics, Google Analytics offers precise data about how actions on , , and other social channels impact your website.
Let’s take the example of Instagram: the internal statistics of this social network —such as— reveal how the community interacts with our brand,…
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