We have gathered all the information you need on Shopify Analytics, starting from Shopify Native Analytics Dashboard, diving deep into Google Analytics, detecting & resolving data discrepancy problems, and many others.
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Table of Contents
Shopify offers the Shopify Analytics feature for all merchants. It is a built-in feature so you don’t have to perform any custom coding or settings to have access to the rich, functional dashboards and reports. Report types and depth vary according to your Shopify plan. However, there are amazing reports even in the most basic plan. You can see a comparison of plans based on the reports on this page.
Shopify’s native Analytics feature is often confused with Google Analytics, which is a completely different tool.
Dashboard Overview
The Shopify Analytics Dashboard is designed for Shopify merchants, not for professionals. That’s why it is easy-to-view and effective.
The metrics and dimensions are quite clear. As seen in the graph, the core metrics are displayed in a card view. The percentage (#1) shows a comparison of the chosen time period to the previous one.
The inline table (#2) shows the results broken down into different dimensions. For example, it’s possible to see the sales channels such as Online Store and MBC Bundles & Product PACK app, as observed in the graph. Returning Customer Rate, Online Store Conversion Rate, Total Orders are some other core metrics that you’d want to check quite often.
Apart from the main Dashboard, there is also a Reports section in case you want to dig deeper.
Actionable, Key Reports
Oftentimes, founders are lost in reports. There’s a great deal of data and tables available, and they all make sense when you look at each and every one of them. However, a report is not just for “looking at”, it is for making the right decisions and taking action. Besides, It is not enough to take action, you also need to follow up on your action’s results and act accordingly. Sometimes optimization attempts do more harm than good. That’s to say, you’ll never know without following up on the results diligently.
All that being said, you need to have a reliable data source and data set that you follow regularly. These are the Shopify Analytics reports that will help you understand what’s going on behind the scenes. A kind note before we start; Shopify Analytics provides you with a great set of metrics – but nowhere close to being as efficient as Google Analytics. Make sure you check the following sections of this post in order to make sure you have the correct setup for Google Analytics and to get a better understanding of it.
Conversion Rate
Most marketers and Shopify merchants are obsessed with Conversion Rate (aka CVR) metrics. Unfortunately, they evaluate it completely the wrong way most of the time.
It sounds like a simple metric: Sessions that resulted in orders / Total number of sessions.
However, it can be misleading because there are too many factors affecting this. Let’s say your CVR went 30% lower compared to last week. It sounds negative, right?
This information itself won’t help you take action because there can be too many reasons to it – and they are not necessarily negative. Some sample scenarios are:
- One of your informative blog posts started to get a lot of traffic – and your number of total sessions increased by 20%. However, it wasn’t a type of blog post that would affect the sales. It was just an informative post and it didn’t attract buyers – at least in the short term. This made your CVR to be lower than last week. Is that really something bad? Definitely not! So, you should also be checking CVR by landing page to avoid these external factors.
- You started to run 3 new Facebook Ads campaigns with 10 ad groups in total. Most likely, all the ad groups won’t perform great but you will still receive more traffic. The CVR will start going lower because of the increased traffic. This shouldn’t panic you because -maybe- 2 of the ad groups have been performing great. You better check the CVR by traffic source report instead of only CVR. You should have the correct UTM link structure on your Facebook Ads to get this report properly.
- Devices, browsers, and operating systems would also give you a meaningful breakdown of your Conversion Rate. You might have responsiveness or technical issues per device/browser/operating system. Don’t underestimate the value of CVR by Device Type or Operation System report.
You can create customized Conversion Rate reports on Shopify Analytics quite easily.
We will create an article/video education series on Shopify Analytics Reports, soon. It will be free and published in Analyzify Hub – make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss it!
Shopify Analytics vs. Google Analytics
Both platforms have unique features and benefits. The short answer is that you need to use them both. Shopify Analytics is easy to understand and shows you the general view – using the core metrics and reports.
We observe inaccuracies and discrepancies in Shopify Analytics reports – especially when it comes to sales attribution. You will probably see a lot of orders from “Direct” which is not natural at all.
Google Analytics, on the other hand, offers an in-depth analysis opportunity – probably even more than you need. You can combine and merge any kind of report with each other. It is also possible to create your own custom dashboards and reports where you can tackle the core metrics that you care about.
Google Analytics Enhanced E-commerce features have been a game-changer for many merchants. You will find more information and benefits about Google Analytics in the following sections.
API
Shopify’s Analytics API is deprecated as seen on this thread. You can see the Reports API if you are a Shopify Advanced or Plus store. The Shopify Reports API doesn’t cover all the metrics available on the Analytics API.
You can use the Report resource to publish reports to the Reports page in the Shopify admin. For example, a shirt fulfillment app could publish a report that compares shirt sales by marketing campaign. The reports are based on queries written in ShopifyQL.
If you are looking for an Analytics API, you can consider Google Analytics. Google Analytics 4,in particular, comes with a great built-in BigQuery integration.
Google Analytics & Shopify
You might be confused about Universal Analytics and GA4. Google recommends parallel tracking – and so do we. You should be using both versions at the same time. In this way, you will still have your current Analytics setup and also add Google Analytics 4 on top of it.
Learn more about Google Analytics – Shopify integration, Google Analytics versions (Universal Analytics & GA4), setup options, key reports, data discrepancies, common problems, and solutions.
Universal Analytics
It is the most popular version of Google Analytics. It has been around since 2013 and hasn’t changed until last year. Shopify’s native integration made the setup seamless. In particular, Enhanced E-commerce reports empowered Shopify merchants with more understanding of their user, product, and sales behavior.
How to Set up Universal Analytics on Shopify
Method 1: Shopify’s Native Integration
You can easily set up Google Analytics through Shopify Admin > Online Store > Preferences > Google Analytics section. Just type your Universal Analytics ID and make sure you enable Enhanced Ecommerce.
Method 2: Analyzify – Shopify App for Data Analytics
Analyzify is a Shopify app that provides you with a turnkey data analytics setup including data layers, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics 4, Universal Analytics, and many other integrations.
Analyzify comes with advanced integration with Universal Analytics. However, we still recommend using the native Universal Analytics integration as it has some advantages.
Unlock All GA4 Ecommerce Reports. Integrate and Learn with Analyzify.
Method 3: Other Shopify Analytics Apps
Make sure to check other Shopify Analytics apps on the Shopify app store. We recommend you consider the following factors while evaluating:
- Do you want to pay an ongoing subscription fee for Google Analytics while you have the native integration or one-time-fee options like Analyzify?
- What will the app provide you as an addition to the native integration?
- Will it be easy to set up and use? Does the app offer a setup option if you are not a tech-savvy Shopify merchant? Does it have an extra cost?
- Will the app ensure that your setup is done correctly and data flows seamlessly?
Now we can assume that you have done and verified your Google Analytics setup, you can jump into the following sections to learn more about Google Analytics reports and common Analytics issues for Shopify merchants.
The Most Important Universal Analytics Reports for Shopify Merchants
We receive this question quite often: “Where should I be looking in Google Analytics?” We have listed the most important reports below:
1. Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/Medium:
You want to know where your traffic/sales are coming from. This will help you understand so much about your business and also help you optimize the ROI for your campaigns. You should be seeing your Paid Campaigns as well as your social traffic, including the paid and the organic. If you don’t see this report correctly, that means your UTM parameters or other settings are not done correctly.
Note: This example report has two problems:
- Social Media Traffic being marked as a referral
- Too much direct traffic.
If you also have these problems, make sure to check out our Google Analytics Health Check article series and detect/fix your problems.
2.Audience > Technology > Browser & OS:
How does your website perform on certain browsers and operating systems? If your conversion rate shows a significant difference between browsers, then it means you might have a problem. Make sure that you take this report as a basis for your research. You can do the same with the Mobile > Devices report and see how your website performs per device.
Just like we mentioned above, the conversion rate (and all other metrics) will change according to the device/browser. It is also natural to convert less from mobile devices. Yet, if it’s too big of a difference (like in the example above); you might want to test your website thoroughly on all devices.
3. Conversions > E-commerce > Shopping Behaviour
This report will show you where you are losing your sales the most during the checkout & purchase process.
4. Conversions > E-commerce > Product Performance:
You can understand the product-level performance with this report. Make sure to check Cart-to-Detail Rate and Buy-to-Detail Rate. Try to figure out which products perform below the average – and try to find the reasons for this. It can be the product’s image, title, price, description, or maybe even the product itself.
5. Sales Performance – by Source/Medium:
Want to know where each sale comes from? This report will help you with that.
You need to choose Source/Medium as a secondary dimension to see the source of each sale. The same logic applies here. If you happen to see a lot of referrals and direct traffic; you should make a health check!
Common Universal Analytics Issues for Shopify Stores:
Data Discrepancy:
It should be annoying when you don’t see all your sales or traffic on Google Analytics. There are a number of reasons for this issue and you can check the our following article for this: Discrepancy Between Google Analytics & Shopify
Missing Product List Data:
Unfortunately, Shopify’s native integration doesn’t work well and it missed the product list performance report. You can consider using Analyzify or another external solution for this matter.
Too much direct traffic:
It doesn’t seem natural, does it? It’s hard to imagine a website having 20%+ direct traffic. More than that usually refers to a problem. Make sure to check out our health check article series: Direct Traffic on Google Analytics
Unwanted referrals:
Referrals are good – but we all know that Stripe or PayPal can not be a correct referral. It is just a payment provider and Analytics can not recognize it because of the missing setup. The worst part of this is that it overwrites the actual traffic source. So you don’t really know where the traffic is coming from. This is an easy fix and the solution is just here: Referrals on Google Analytics
Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
Google Analytics 4 (aka GA4) is the new and default version of Google Analytics. It’s been around for almost a year now. GA4 is the most powerful free analytics tool in the market. It covers so many enterprise-level features at no cost.
Apart from the standard reports, segmentation capabilities, custom report building features, event-based tracking, BigQuery integration are available features. Make sure to check our article on Exciting Features of Google Analytics 4 for Online Stores.
Shopify doesn’t have a native integration yet. However, we’ve provided you with a few alternative setup options below.
Should you use Google Analytics 4 on Shopify?
Definitely yes! It is the new and default version of Google Analytics. Google pays close attention to this product and it will keep receiving amazing updates. It already has many exciting features as explained above.
How to Set up Google Analytics 4 on Shopify?
There are several methods to set up GA4 on your Shopify store. We obviously recommend Method 2. Analyzify empowers over 400 stores and they do have the best possible GA4 Integration and Data Analytics setup. Make sure you check out our reviews on the Shopify App store.
Method 1: Manual Setup
You can do the setup by yourself. Still, we should warn you that you will be missing out on a lot of reports and features as you can not add code to every section of your website for every kind of event. We have created a Youtube Video Series on setting up Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics 4 on your own. Follow the links below:
Shopify – Google Tag Manager Course (Including GA4 Setup)
GA4 Setup on Shopify – Youtube
Method 2: Analyzify – Google Analytics 4 Connector for Shopify
Analyzify is not ONLY a Google Analytics 4 connector – it includes all major integrations and ensures that your store has a solid, accurate data analytics setup. We also offer a Done-For-You setup service at no extra cost so that you don’t have to worry about anything but enjoy your amazing GA4 integration and reports.
Want to learn more about Shopify data analytics and marketing topics?
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