5 Actionable Tips to Drive eCommerce Sales By Analyzing Data in Google Analytics

One vital lesson that we’ve learned from the pandemic is that eCommerce is critical to businesses’ success today. Many companies that weren’t using eCommerce or actively promoting their online merchant stores prior to COVID-19 turned to eCommerce to attract clients during the pandemic. For example, many automotive dealerships that weren’t actively digitalizing the auto buying journey prior to the pandemic were actively promoting online purchasing features and mobile test drives during the lockdown. For example, automotive dealerships allowed auto shoppers to book test drives online and dealerships would drop off test drive vehicles at shoppers’ homes and the shoppers could test drive the vehicles for a few days. If the shoppers were satisfied with the vehicles, they could purchase  the vehicles online on dealership websites. 

Restaurants also turned to eCommerce during the pandemic by offering online ordering and curbside pickup. Many restaurants’ websites allowed shoppers to select menu items, specify the quantity for the items, and place orders online and shoppers would pick up the orders at the restaurants.

ECommerce will continue to play a vital role in a business’ operations even as the economy reopens and shoppers could visit brick-and-mortar stores. To help companies maximize their eCommerce growth, I have come up with five actionable tactics you can use to analyze Google Analytics data and optimize your sales performance:

1. Identify Traffic and Sales Volume Trends for Specific Product Pages

You can specify a timeframe to determine traffic and sales volume trends for specific inventory items. For example, if you’re a fashion retailer and you’ve recently released your summer clothing line and accessories, you can select the first day that the clothing line and accessories were added to your website as the timeframe and determine if there’s an upward or downward trend in traffic for these product pages. If there’s a downward trend in website traffic, consider increasing your marketing efforts such as spending more on Facebook or Google Ads to drive more website traffic to these pages or using influencer marketing to develop more brand awareness about these products.

2. Identify Search Query Trends for Product Pages

A word can have multiple meanings. For example, the word “cable” can mean a thick rope or wire or a reference to television programs (cable television).

To ensure that you’re generating organic traffic from online users who are specifically looking for the type of products or services you offer, look at the search queries that users are entering in Google to land on your website (you have to setup Google Search Console and link the console with your Google Analytics first to gain access to this data). If you find out that your website is ranking for unrelated queries, update your website content so your website rank for more pertinent search queries!

3. Use Assisted Conversions Funnel Report

The Assisted Conversions report summarizes the roles and contributions different digital channels play in making a conversion. For example, a shopper may click on a Facebook ad and don’t buy anything and revisit the website a few days later directly and make a purchase. In this case, the conversion happened after two touchpoints and the Facebook ad assisted with the conversion.

Understanding the assisted conversions funnel lets you know which channels are helping with your sales and which ones aren’t. Gaining this information understanding helps you better allocate your digital marketing budget by spending more on channels that are helping you with sales and minimize budget on channels that aren’t.

4. Use Top Conversion Paths Report

Similar to the Assisted Conversions Funnel, Top Conversion Paths provides you with insights on your shoppers’ consumer journeys by showing you which paths shoppers take before making a purchase. For example, Top Conversion Paths could show you that 50% of your customers visit your website via Facebook ad > revisiting the website organically > visit your website via newsletter > make a purchase.

Top Conversion Paths further gives you an overview on how different channels are contributing to sales and how you could use your budget more efficiently.

5. Use Geographic Location Data

Google Analytics shows the geographic locations of where shoppers are when they’re visiting your website or making purchases. You can use this data to allocate your budget accordingly based on which areas are more likely to make a purchase. For example, if you’re a local auto repair shop in Mount Pleasant and you find out that a majority of your customers are booking appointments within 5km radius of your shop, focus your advertising efforts in that parameter.

Google Analytics offers plentiful data that help marketers and business owners make analytical decisions that will help them increase the efficiency of their ad spend. By using Google Analytics data to improve your eCommerce sales performance, you can optimize their website content correctly to bring in the right type of audience to their websites, spend more budget on channels that are contributing to sales, or targeting geographic areas that are more likely to bring in customers. These changes will generate incremental but positive and lasting changes to your business!

RW Digital is a digital marketing agency focusing on data analytics and creative design. Their goal is to help clients connect the dots in the digital a labyrinth.