(This article was last published on February 26, 2015. It’s been updated for accuracy and completeness by our friends over at 121eCommerce, a seasoned Magento Professional Partner and web development agency specializing in B2B and B2C eCommerce.)
If you run an eCommerce store, data-driven decisions are the best way to improve conversion rates, bring in more sales, and propel your business to new heights.
But how can you get the data you use to make your decisions?
Unlike the owner of a retailer store, for example, you can’t just watch customers and see where they linger – and the items or sections of your store that they ignore.
So what should you do?
Google Analytics is a great place to start. It gives you the tools you need to analyze how your site traffic behaves. And, it’s FREE! As a result, it has become the de facto web analytics platform.
And if you use Magento for your eCommerce store, you should definitely use Google Analytics – it’s easy to integrate, offers excellent features, and is totally free.
In this updated guide we’ll take a look at why Google Analytics is such a great tool for eCommerce entrepreneurs and how to integrate it into your Magento storefront.
Why Should I Use Google Analytics in My Magento Store?
Because it’s the best way to track user behavior, gather insights about activity on your website, and make data-driven decisions to improve your overall website design.
If you don’t have some kind of analytics software running on your website, you may not even know basic information like how many people visit your website, your bounce rate, click-through rates, and other metrics.
You’re essentially driving blindfolded. At night. With no headlights.
Bestselling author, speaker and management consultant, Geoffrey Moore sums it up: “Without big data, you are blind and deaf and in the middle of a freeway.”
But with Google Analytics, you’ll be able to build a strong foundation of data that you can use to make better decisions for your Magento store. You can measure the success of advertising campaigns, A/B test different pages, improve page loading speed – the possibilities are endless.
How to Integrate Magento with Google Analytics
In 2021, the best (and easiest) way to integrate Magento with Google Analytics is by using the native Google Analytics integration offered by the Magento 2 platform.
There are two simple steps you’ll need to complete to integrate Magento with Google Analytics.
Step 1: Sign up for Google Analytics
If you haven’t already done so, you’ll need to head to Google Analytics to set up an account and get a Google Analytics Account Number. You’ll need this to integrate Google Analytics into Magento.
Step 2: Connect to Magento
Next, you’ll need to log into the Admin console for your Magento store.
- Click on the Admin sidebar, then select Stores > Settings > Configuration.
- On the left-hand panel, expand the Sales section. Next, choose Google API from the settings that appear.
- Click the Expand button to expand the Google Analytics section of the panel.
- Set the Enable setting to “Yes,” and enter your Google Analytics Account Number in the provided text field.
- Click Save Config to save your new configuration settings. That’s it! You’re done!
Optionally, you can also set Content Experiments to “Yes” if you would like to use Google’s tools to A/B test pages and run other performance tests. This is not required.
“Without big data, you are blind and deaf and in the middle of a freeway.”
– Geoffrey Moore
What Can I Do With Google Analytics After I Integrate it with My Magento Store?
A better question is “what can’t you do?” Because you can do just about anything you can imagine with Google Analytics. Its basic functions let you get an at-a-glance overview of key metrics:
- Your total number of website visitors
- Average time spent on your website and on specific pages
- Geographic locations of visitors
- Views of individual pages
- The path that visitors take through your site (including the different pages they click to end up at a particular page)
And that’s just the beginning. Google Analytics is an extremely powerful tool and is very versatile and flexible. Once you become more familiar with it, you can:
- Assess individual page performance to check on loading times and see how they affect bounce rates/conversion rates.
- See which pages are generating the most value (sales) on your store.
- Track the progress of email marketing campaigns and Google AdWords campaigns.
- Break down your website visitors by age, interests, gender, location, and other demographic information.
How to Get Started with Google Analytics
If you want more information about Google Analytics, Google Analytics Academy is a great place to start. This free resource from Google will take you through the basics of how Analytics works, how to generate reports, and even how to track the success of specific marketing campaigns. It’s a great place to get started.
Check out these helpful articles to help improve your Magento site:
- 14 Questions to Ask Before Hiring an eCommerce Agency
- Magento 1 End of Life: How to Meet PCI Compliance
- 3 Ways to Integrate Magento and NetSuite
About the Author
Ben Chafetz is the CEO of 121eCommerce, a Magento-only shop and Adobe’s 2020 Emerging Partner of the Year for Magento Commerce.
Coming from the client side, Ben has a unique perspective and what works and what doesn’t for eCommerce merchants. After growing an eCommerce business from $500,000 in yearly revenue to $80 million, Ben founded 121eCommerce in 2014. Since then, the company has grown from a fledgling group of five to a robust team of nearly 50 employees.
Ben has over two decades of eCommerce experience and has worked on Magento since its inception in 2007. He is a regular speaker on Magento and eCommerce. He has two dogs and six children.
you do realise that magento doesn’t support universal by default and you have to write a custom module to implement it properly (without polluting your code or changing core files.)
Some clarification will probably be helpful. If you are trying to integrate Universal Analytics, I suggested three options in the post:
1) You can use the out of the box Magento functionality, if you use a supported version of Magento…per this blog post, it’s 1.9.1: http://goo.gl/EdCpC7
2) You can use an extension. I mentioned Google Universal Analytics by Aromicon in the post, but there may be others.
3) You can use Google Tag Manager to apply Universal Analytics to your Magento site. (My personally recommended approach.)
Hope this helps clear things up a bit. Thanks for the comment.
amazing article
We are also looking for google analytics implementation for our magento store
Can any one help us ?
Our magento store address is below mentioned
https://www.bazaarcart.com/collections/ramdev-patanjali-products