Shopify & Google Analytics 4 (GA4): How to Install and Use It Right

As an e-commerce store owner, you understand the importance of data-driven decision-making and the role it plays in driving success. To effectively track and analyze your website’s performance, Google Analytics has long been the go-to tool. With the recent launch of Google Analytics 4 (GA4), it’s time to take your Shopify store’s tracking capabilities to the next level.

In this article, we will explore the significance of implementing GA4 e-commerce tracking for your Shopify store and delve into the various methods of integration. Additionally, we’ll cover the process of migrating your existing Universal Analytics setup (UA) to GA4, ensuring a seamless transition and uninterrupted data tracking.

By harnessing the power of GA4, you can gain valuable insights into your customers’ behavior, optimize your marketing efforts, and make data-backed decisions to enhance your store’s performance. Let’s dive in and discover the immense potential of Google Analytics 4 for your Shopify store.

You can also check out our other article on how to set up google tag manager on shopify.

In today’s competitive e-commerce landscape, shop owners face a multitude of challenges and tasks that require data-driven insights to make informed decisions. Google Analytics 4 (GA4) offers a comprehensive suite of features and reports specifically designed to address the unique needs of Shopify store owners. In this chapter, we will explore the key business tasks that can be accomplished by integrating GA4 into your Shopify store.

1. Tracking Sales and Revenue.
   GA4 provides robust e-commerce tracking capabilities, allowing you to accurately measure and analyze sales and revenue data. With GA4 reports, you can gain insights into product performance, identify your best-selling items, and understand revenue trends over time. This information enables you to optimize your product offerings, pricing strategies, and marketing campaigns to drive revenue growth.
2. Analyzing Conversion Funnels.
   Understanding and optimizing your conversion funnels is crucial for increasing sales and maximizing your return on investment (ROI). GA4 offers advanced funnel analysis reports that allow you to visualize the customer journey and identify bottlenecks or areas of drop-off. By analyzing these reports, you can make data-backed decisions to optimize your sales funnels, improve conversion rates, and drive more revenue for your Shopify store.
3. Monitoring Marketing Campaign Performance.
   GA4 provides valuable insights into the performance of your marketing campaigns. By leveraging GA4 reports, you can track the effectiveness of different marketing channels, measure campaign ROI, and identify which channels are driving the most valuable traffic and conversions. This information helps you allocate your marketing budget effectively, optimize your campaigns, and target your audience with precision.
4. Understanding Customer Behavior.
   GA4 offers comprehensive reports that provide insights into customer behavior and preferences. You can analyze user engagement metrics such as session duration, page views, and bounce rates to understand how visitors interact with your Shopify store. GA4’s enhanced user behavior tracking enables you to identify trends, optimize user experience, and make data-driven decisions to enhance customer satisfaction and retention.
5. Segmentation and Personalization.
   GA4 allows you to create custom audience segments based on various attributes, such as demographics, behavior, or transaction history. These segments enable you to deliver personalized marketing messages, tailored product recommendations, and targeted campaigns to specific groups of customers. By leveraging GA4’s segmentation capabilities, you can enhance customer loyalty, increase repeat purchases, and drive long-term customer value.
6. Mobile App Analytics.
   For Shopify store owners with mobile apps, GA4 offers robust tracking and analysis capabilities. You can gain insights into user behavior within your mobile app, track in-app purchases, and analyze user engagement metrics specific to the app. This information helps you optimize your mobile app experience, increase mobile conversions, and drive engagement with your brand.

Integrating GA4 into your Shopify store empowers you to tackle various business tasks and challenges. By leveraging GA4’s e-commerce tracking, conversion funnel analysis, marketing campaign monitoring, customer behavior insights, segmentation, and mobile app analytics, you can make data-driven decisions, optimize your store’s performance, and drive growth in your Shopify business.

The subsequent chapters will guide you through the process of adding GA4 to your Shopify store and migrating your analytics setup for seamless implementation.

In this article, we will discuss the three ways you can place the GA4 counter on your Shopify site. By exploring these methods, you will gain valuable insights into integrating GA4 effectively for tracking and analyzing your Shopify store’s performance.

The simplest and fastest way, requiring zero code, is to add GA4 integration to Shopify using the Google & YouTube application. In addition, you can utilize this application for integrating with Google Merchant Center and importing product feeds. However, we recommend using this application specifically for GA4 integration and utilizing other apps for importing data feeds.

Next, we will tell you how to integrate Shopify and GA4. If you already have a GA4 account, skip to our instructions. If you don’t have a GA4 account yet, check out the Google Help Article: Set up Analytics for a website and/or app.

To integrate Shopify with GA4, follow these steps.

1. Go to Online Store => Preferences section and click “Manage pixel here” button.
   
   
2. After clicking on the button, you will be directed to the application page. On this page, connect your Google Account (using an email with access to your GA4 Property) and then select the appropriate Google Analytics property by choosing the correct one from the provided list.
3. On the same page, below that, you will find the Google Merchant Center integration section. We strongly advise against using this feature, especially if you are already utilizing other applications to import product data feeds. 
4. If you have previously had Google Analytics code (gtad.js) placed directly in the code of your site, remove it from the site to avoid double data.
5. To ensure that the GA4 tag is correctly set up on your site and that data is not being double-tracked, you can use the GA4 DebugView or the Tag Assistant.

Once you have successfully set up GA4 on your store, the following events will be automatically tracked.

If your site already has Universal Analytics installed, you are likely aware of the upcoming transition to GA4, which is scheduled for July 1, 2023.

You can read about how to fully migrate to GA4 in Google’s help materials or use Google’s quick migration guide.

In addition to the comprehensive materials provided by Google on the migration to GA4, we also want to share some important tips on how to make this migration smoothly.  

1. Please avoid using the automatic transfer of UA settings to the GA4 view. The automatic transfer can potentially introduce errors, which may take longer to rectify compared to manually transferring the settings. To disable the auto-transfer, follow these instructions provided by Google.
2. Change the data storage time to the maximum (the default storage time is 2 months).
3. Think through and create the structure of the account. How many resources will you need, and for what tasks?
4. Think through the map and naming of the events. What will the events be called? What will be included in the additional parameters of GA4 events?

If you need expert help with the migration to GA4, you can entrust us with this task and we will do everything for you.

In conclusion, this article has explored the significance of integrating Google Analytics 4 (GA4) into Shopify stores and highlighted the importance of e-commerce tracking. By leveraging GA4, store owners can gain valuable insights and make data-driven decisions to enhance their performance. By embracing GA4 and following the recommended strategies, Shopify store owners can unlock the full potential of data-driven insights, optimize their operations, and drive success.

Check out our library to learn more about promotion for ecommerce.

If you have any further questions or require assistance with GA4 setup or migration from UA to GA4, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We are here to help you.