How to Use Google Analytics GA4 for an eCommerce Website

Date: April 24, 2023
Tracking and analyzing your website traffic and user behavior is essential if you’re an eCommerce website owner. This is where Google Analytics GA4 comes handy. GA4 is the most advanced and latest version of Google Analytics, and it helps you with its amazing features and capabilities to understand your traffic, understand the preferences of your audience and help you optimize your website  for better online presence. Top eCommerce marketing agencies use GA4 for their analytics. Prior to October 2020, GA3 was used as an industry standard, until Google released GA4. GA4 was a massive upgrade from GA3 (also known as Universal Analytics) since it improved on parameters such as measurement model, cross-platform tracking, user-centric data, improved machine learning and most importantly, GA4 is better integrated with the rest of the Google tools in contrast to GA3. So GA4 is much more advanced and powerful than GA3 and provides better analysis of user behavior and tracking across multiple devices, platforms and channels, and it does it with better efficiency. The following blog will give you details on how to use GA4 to track and analyze the user experience and behavior on your website.  

Setting Up GA4 for Your eCommerce Website

You can start off with creating a Google Analytics account. Followed by that, go on to your website’s source code and install the GA4 tracking code on your website. Once you have completed these two steps, you are good to go. You can start analyzing the data collected by GA4 and you can study the user behavior.  

Tracking User Behavior with GA4

The measurement model used in GA4 is an event-based model. Technically it means that it tracks user interactions (every click, every tap, every scroll) using events and parameters. In order to obtain that data, you need to set up the events that correspond to the actions taken by the user. (product clicks, purchases, etc). Top eCommerce SEO companies rely on this particular feature a lot. Some ideas and examples of events you might want to consider tracking for your eCommerce Website:
  • Product clicks: This event tracks when a user clicks on a product image or title.
  • Add-to-carts: This event tracks when a user adds a product to their shopping cart.
  • Purchases: This event tracks when a user completes a purchase on your website.
You must create an event tag and configure it with the necessary characteristics, such as the event category, action, and label, in order to set up events in GA4. Using Google Tag Manager or another tag management tool, you can then add the tag to the pertinent pages on your website.  

Analyzing User Behavior with GA4

This is one of the most important aspects of eCommerce SEO. You can start tracking user behavior and start analyzing the data in GA4 once you have created the event tags. You can get insights of your audience and accordingly optimize your online presence. This can be done because of several advanced reporting and analysis features provided by GA4. Here are several methods used by huge eCommerce agencies for analyzing user behavior on your eCommerce website using GA4:
  1. User behavior flow: How your users interact with different pages and elements and navigate through your website is shown in the User Behavior Flow Report in GA4. This report suggests where work has to be put in i.e.,  where are users getting stuck or confused and you can optimize your website according to the data obtained.
  2. Sales performance: The sales performance report in GA4 displays the sales and revenue trends for your website. This report may be used to monitor your conversion rate, average order value, and other important data as well as pinpoint areas where your sales performance can be enhanced.
  3. Audience insights: To help you understand your target audience better and tailor your marketing activities, GA4 provides you with precise demographic and interest data about your traffic. Using this data, you can divide your audience into target segments and provide them targeted content that are relevant to them.
  4. Predictive insights: GA4’s ML features can help you with automation tools that would provide you with insights and predictions on the user’s behavior. It is powerful enough to  predict things like whether a user would proceed to buy or his/her likelihood of not using the service. This information helps in making decisions in terms of improving your marketing campaigns.
 

Conclusion

The improved features and capabilities offered by Google Analytics GA4 can aid owners of eCommerce websites in better understanding their target market and enhancing their online visibility. Ecommerce SEO experts rate this tool very highly. Gaining insights into your audience, enhancing the functionality of your website, and raising sales and revenue are all possible by setting up events and examining user behavior using GA4.