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.
The Importance of Shopify GA4 E-commerce Tracking
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.
- 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. - 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. - 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. - 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. - 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. - 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.
From ensuring accurate data tracking to resolving issues like duplicated data, incorrect conversion tracking, or lost data, we’ve got you covered.
Ways to Add GA4 to Shopify Store
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.
Shopify GA4 Integration
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.
- Go to Online Store => Preferences section and click “Manage pixel here” button.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 debug view or the Tag Assistant.
Once you have successfully set up GA4 on your store, the following events will be automatically tracked.
| Event name | Event description |
| page_view | A customer visited a page on your online store. |
| search | A customer searched for a product on your online store. |
| view_item | A customer viewed a product on your online store. |
| add_to_cart | A customer added a product to cart. |
| begin_checkout | A customer started the checkout process. |
| add_payment_info | A customer successfully entered payment information. |
| purchase | A customer completed their checkout. |
Here, you will find a more detailed Shopify Help article about migrating from Universal Analytics (UA) to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) via app integration.
How to Install GA4 on Shopify
If, for any reason, you prefer not to use the GA4 integration through the app, there are alternative ways to place a tag on your site:
- Using Google Tag Manager.
- Directly inserting the tag into the site code (a unified gtag for all resources).
Set up GA4 using Google Tag Manager
We will not go through the step-by-step installation process of GA4 through Google Tag Manager here. However, you can read about the basic principles in this Google Help article.
Add the GA4 tag directly in the site code
You can use the gtag.js tag to add Google Analytics 4 on your site. The gtag.js tag from Google offers a convenient solution for integrating various Google products and services (such as Google Ads, Google Analytics, Campaign Manager, Display & Video 360, Search Ads 360) into your website. Rather than dealing with multiple tags for different Google product accounts, you can implement the Google tag across your entire website and establish connections to multiple destinations.
If you decide to use this tag, you will need to insert it directly into the code of your Shopify site. Please note that for complete customization and accurate tracking of all e-commerce events on your site, it is necessary to make specific adjustments to your code. Therefore, we highly recommend reaching out to your developers for assistance.
GA4 Migration
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.
- 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.
- Change the data storage time to the maximum (the default storage time is 2 months).
- Think through and create the structure of the account. How many resources will you need, and for what tasks?
- 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.
Conclusion
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.
FAQ
What is Google Analytics 4 (GA4)?
Google Analytics 4, also known as GA4, is the latest version of Google’s web analytics platform. It provides a comprehensive set of tools and features to track and analyze user behavior on websites, mobile apps, and other digital platforms.
What data can I track with GA4 on my Shopify store?
GA4 allows you to track various types of data on your Shopify store, including:
- Website traffic and user behavior
- E-commerce events, such as purchases, add-to-cart actions, and product views
- Conversion rates and revenue
- User demographics and interests
- Marketing campaign performance
- User engagement and retention metrics
Are there any limitations or considerations when using GA4 on Shopify?
While GA4 offers powerful analytics capabilities, there are a few limitations and considerations to keep in mind:
- GA4 is a new version and may require some adjustments to your tracking setup compared to the previous Universal Analytics.
- Historical data from Universal Analytics may not be fully compatible with GA4.
- It’s important to set up proper event tracking and configure your data streams correctly to ensure accurate tracking and reporting.
- Regularly review and update your GA4 implementation as new features and updates are introduced.
Can I track specific events or custom actions in Google Analytics 4 for my Shopify store?
Yes, you can track custom events or actions in Google Analytics 4 to gain more granular insights into user interactions on your Shopify store. By using the GA4 Measurement Protocol or Google Tag Manager, you can set up event tracking for specific actions such as button clicks, form submissions, video views, or any other custom events relevant to your business. This allows you to analyze user behavior and optimize your store accordingly.
Why is GA4 not tracking revenue in Shopify?
It’s possible that the problem you’re facing is related to how e-commerce tracking is set up on your Shopify store. Here are a few things you can check to help fix the issue. One solution is to make sure that e-commerce tracking is turned on and configured correctly in your GA4 property. Another thing to check is if transaction data is being sent accurately to your GA4 property. If nothing helps, then you can contact our team for help.
Xenia Volokitina
Performance Marketing Specialist. Working with PPC since 2016. Specializes in Google & Microsoft paid traffic for eCommerce & B2B projects. In love with analysis. When not launching effective Ad campaigns, she is reading up on the latest in eCommerce and data tracking last trends.
