All almost all of us have heard of Google Analytics. So, what is it and what information can be generated from using it?
As described by Google:
“Google Analytics gives you the digital analytics tools you need to analyze data from all touchpoints in one place, for a deeper understanding of the customer experience. You can then share the insights that matter with your whole organization. Build a complete picture: Understand your site and app users to better evaluate the performance of your content, products, and more. Get insight only Google can give you: Access Google’s proprietary audience data and machine learning capabilities to help get the most out of your data. Connect your digital analytics to results: Google Analytics is built to work with Google’s media and publisher products so you can use your digital analytics insights to drive real impact. Make your digital analytics data work for you: Process and share massive amounts of data quickly with an easy-to-use interface combined with shareable reports.”
Click here to read more about the capabilities of Google Analytics; and click here for a free sign-up for Google Analytics.
Morgan Jones — writing for Practical E-Commerce — provides a number of valuable tips for small and medium-sized businesses on how to better use Google Analytics data:
Niche E-commerce merchants must focus on cash flow. They do not have large capital reserves to support unprofitable investments. Although growing sales is good for the ego, growing cash flow is what puts food on the table. In this article, I’ll address how to use Google Analytics to track profitability by product category — reporting on sales, cost of goods sold, and advertising expense — to maximize cash flow.”
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“Reporting Sales by Product Category — Google Analytics E-commerce tracking can report sales by product category. To view sales by category, go to Conversions > E-commerce > Product Performance and select ‘Product Category.’”
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“Reporting Cost of Goods Sold by Product Category — Google Analytics has a feature to import product cost data. To set this up, first create a new custom metric at Admin > Property > Custom Definitions > Custom Metrics.”
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“Reporting Advertising Cost by Product Category — Setting up a reporting dashboard to track gross profit after advertising cost enables merchants to identify which categories generate the most cash flow. The optimal way to report advertising cost by product category is to structure advertising campaigns and ad groups to align with product categories. That way Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and other campaigns and their ad groups can be combined with category sales to report gross profit after advertising.”
Click the image to read a lot about Jones’ how-to tips.
Retailing: From A to Z 