set up woocommerce with google analytics - featured image

How to set up WooCommerce with Google Analytics

Want to integrate your WooCommerce store with Google Analytics? Connecting your online store with Google Analytics to retrieve data from it can be a great way to collect information about how customers interact with your store and what decisions you can take to improve conversions. In this guide, we’ll show you an easy way to set up WooCommerce with Google Analytics.

First, let’s take a look at why you should consider using Google Analytics on your website.

Why use Google Analytics on WooCommerce?

The idea of using collected data and statistics to make improvements to your business is neither new nor uncommon. Every business needs to apply a measure to collect data from their transactions to measure and track crucial points that can help you continue gaining more conversions.

To do so, Google Analytics is not only one of the best tools out there for this but also a completely free one. With a simple tracking ID, you can easily choose to integrate your WordPress website with Google Analytics and measure important metrics like page views, sessions made, transactions completed, unique visitors, and more.

But why consider Google Analytics for WooCommerce? For one, Google Analytics comes with inherent features for WooCommerce and eCommerce stores as a whole. You can track which products are the most popular, the average cart value of your products, abandonment cart rates, and more. These metrics let you have a clear idea of which products are popular with customers, what trends develop on your website over time, and if certain changes make a positive effect on your business.

After you set up WooCommerce with Google Analytics, you can have clear insights regarding your operations. Some of these can be:

  • Your customer’s interactions and shopping behavior through your store.
  • The most popular products and the least performing products of your store.
  • The progress and outcome of the marketing campaigns for your website.
  • SEO performance, organic traffic, and top referral sources.
  • Specific event tracking for WooCommerce actions like Cart actions, Cart values, Checkout, Product interaction, etc.

You can get all of this data for free, especially if you use the official WooCommerce Google Analytics integration plugin. So now that you know why you should consider integrating Google Analytics with WooCommerce, let’s take a look at how you could do so.

How to set up WooCommerce with Google Analytics

The best way to connect WooCommerce with Google Analytics is by using a plugin. There are many plugins specifically designed to help you integrate Google Analytics with WooCommerce.

For our tutorial, we’ll be using the WooCommerce Google Analytics plugin. It is a completely free tool and also has a very user-friendly interface too. The integration itself is very simple and all you need to do is paste in your Tracking ID to start the integration process.

set up woocommerce with google analytics - woocommerce Google analytics integration

Let’s start with the process of installing the plugin.

Before we begin, we assume that you have set up WooCommerce on your website by following all the complete steps. You should also make sure to one of the WooCommerce compatible themes. This ensures that there won’t be any theme or plugin conflicts during the process.

1. Install and Activate the Plugin

To install and activate the plugin, open your WordPress Admin Page first and click on Plugins > Add New.

set up woocommerce with google analytics - install plugin 1

Then use the search bar on the top right and search for WooCommerce Google Analytics Integration. After you find the plugin, click on the Install Now button on the plugin’s card. Once the button changes to Activate, click on it to finally finish activating the plugin.

set up woocommerce with google analytics - install plugin 2

Similarly, if you want to use any other premium plugin, you’ll have to upload it manually for installation. You can have a look at our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin manually for further information on it.

2. Integrate Google Analytics with WooCommerce using the Tracking ID

Next, you’ll need to create a Property for your website specifically to integrate Google Analytics with your WooCommerce website. For this, you’ll need to sign in to your Google Analytics account.

Once you do so, open the Admin tab and click on the Create Property Button. Do note that if you create a new account, you’ll be asked to create a new property. But the process of doing so is identical to the following steps.

set up woocommerce with google analytics - create property

 

2.1. Create a Property for Google Analytics to generate Tracking ID:

Start by naming your property using the Property name field and then set your Reporting time zone and change your currency if you’d like. However, the reporting time zone shows your user interactions in your local time.

set up woocommerce with google analytics - property setup

Next, click on Show Advanced Options and enable the ‘Create a Universal Analytics property.’ Then, add the URL for your website and make sure you have the ‘Create both a Google Analytics 4 and a Universal Analytics property option’ enabled.

Once you do that, click on Next.

set up woocommerce with google analytics - universal analytics property

Then, you’ll be asked for some information regarding your business and how you intend to use Google Analytics on the next page. Fill in the options as you see fit for your website and click on Create.

set up woocommerce with google analytics - business infromation create

Now, you’ll be shown your Web stream details where you can see your Measurement ID. Click on the copy to clipboard button next to it and paste it somewhere if you’d like since you need this for the WooCommerce Integration.

set up woocommerce with google analytics - find measurement ID

You can also view your Measurement ID at any time by clicking on Admin > Data streams and then clicking on your previously created Stream.

set up woocommerce with google analytics - check ID

Now, open your WooCommerce’s Integration page by clicking on WooCommerce > Settings > Integrations > Google Analytics on your WP Admin Dashboard.

 

Then, paste the Tracking ID that you just saved into the Google Analytics Tracking ID field and fill in your website name on the Set Domain Name field.

Click on Enable Universal Statistics and click on Save Changes. This should finish the integration process.

Now, after 24 hours you should see statistics/data on your Google Analytics Dashboard.

3. Enable eCommerce Settings for Google Analytics

Once you have your Google Analytics integrated into your WooCommerce website, you’ll have to go back to your Google Analytics dashboard again to enable some specific eCommerce settings that Google provides you. These options are specifically designed for eCommerce websites and track eCommerce events like cart actions, purchase events, etc.

So go ahead and open the Admin tab once again from your Google Analytics Dashboard. Here, click on the Settings icon on the bottom left of your screen.

This will provide you with a new column on the far right under the title View. Select the Ecommerce Settings under the view options.

Then, you will be provided with the eCommerce settings. Turn on both the options here i.e., Enable Ecommerce as well as the Enable Enhanced Ecommerce Reporting option.

Again, go back to your Google Integrations setting page in your WordPress website by clicking on WooCommerce > Settings > Integration > Google Analytics.

Then, scroll down and click on Enable Enhanced eCommerce option and then Save Changes.

set up woocommerce with google analytics - GA integration advanced ecommerce

With this done, you have finished the process to set up WooCommerce with Google Analytics. Of course, you can also choose to experiment with additional Google Analytics options to track additional metrics if you’d like. They include:

  • Add to cart and cart abandonments.
  • Purchase transactions.
  • Advertisement metrics.
  • 404 Page not found errors and more.

Bonus: Important Metrics to track in WooCommerce using Google Analytics

Just because you have integrated your WooCommerce store with Google Analytics, it doesn’t mean you’re done. Connecting your website with Google Analytics is just the first step; It is also very important to start keeping track of your measures.

For a constant increase in profits and website traffic, you need to make data-driven decisions. You can constantly track data from your Google Analytics integration to help you with it. Of course, with Google Analytics, you get a huge number of statistics regarding tons of metrics.

But, you can also add to these metrics using custom events if you’d like. This includes metrics such as:

  • Customer Shopping behavior.
  • Particular Product Performances.
  • Key Performance Indicators(KPIs.)
  • Sales funnels.
  • Checkout behavior.
  • Various conversion tracking.
  • General statistics such as page views, sessions, and more

And this is just the shortlist. But you may be wondering where do you start when it comes to your Google Analytics reports?

Google Analytics Metrics to Keep in Mind

Keeping track of data from Google Analytics might be a bit overwhelming for some users. So, to make it easier, you can choose to narrow it down to specific business metrics. This is why we’ve made a quick list here that you can use to start with.

  • Conversion Rates

For starters, you can track your Conversion rates with Google Analytics. This is arguably one of the most important metrics for any online business. You can calculate the conversion rate for WooCommerce based on the number of unique visitors to your website along with the number of purchases over a certain period.

The average conversion rate for eCommerce sites ranges from around 2% to 3%. Once you have a good idea about your current conversions, you can set realistic goals for your business. Then, you can create marketing plans to reach your conversion rate goals and maintain them over long stretches.

If you’re looking for specific tips on improving your WooCommerce conversion rate, we also have a perfect guide here that you can use as a reference.

  • Cart Abandonment

Another great metric that you can use from Google Analytics is your Shopping Cart Abandonment rate. This is generally defined as the number of users that leave your website without finishing the checkout for their cart.

Tracking the reasons why they don’t complete their purchase can be a smart way to ensure that you don’t lose out on possible revenue streams due to an oversight regarding your checkout and cart process. And along with tracking why your customers abandon your carts, you can also implement measures to recover abandoned carts as well.

However, we highly suggest going through our article on the most important WooCommerce metrics to track for your website for a clearer view of this topic.

Conclusion

And that ends our guide on how to set up WooCommerce with Google Analytics. To cover our bases, we’ll quickly summarize the steps you’ll need to take to integrate WooCommerce with Google Analytics:

  1. Install and activate the WooCommerce Google Google Analytics integration.
  2. Create a new property for your WooCommerce website.
  3. Copy and paste your Tracking ID into your WooCommerce Google Analytics integration settings.
  4. Enable all the necessary Google Analytics and eCommerce tracking options.

If you’d like to experience an easier process to set up WooCommerce with Google Analytics, you can consider using a third-party Google Analytics plugin. These plugins do more than simply integrate your Google Analytics Dashboard into your WordPress Admin page. You can also enjoy additional features for analytics and tracking, thus streamlining the Google Analytics experience even more. We highly suggest checking these plugins out if you want a bit more from your WooCommerce Google Analytics Integration.

If you have any problems regarding these steps or valuable input on which metrics you consider important, we’d love to hear from you in the comments.

Additionally, you can also have a look at some more of our guides to learn more about smart data tracking and applying them to your website: