How to Track Your Shopify Conversion Rate with Google Analytics

Running an eCommerce store isn’t as simple as launching a pretty website, adding a couple of products here and there, and running ad campaigns to drive traffic. For the best results, you must also optimize your website for Shopify sales and measure your online store conversion rate.

However, even when you’re doing your best to optimize the customer experience, you may not understand why you’re not getting the results you want. 

What is a “conversion rate”?

Simply put, successful online store managers define conversion rate as the percentage of visitors who took the desired action. You determine retail conversion rates by dividing the number of people who saw your page or message and dividing it by the number of people who converted.

The ultimate goal is to get the website visitor to make a purchase.

However, they’ll go through multiple conversions before doing so, which include:

• Adding an item to their cart
• Navigate to a product page
• Clicking on a promotional banner
• Clicking an ad
• Starting a chat on your website

The most significant online retail conversion rate that matters is how many people visited your website vs. how many made a purchase.

After, your goal as an eCommerce retail store is to drive the most sales as possible.

What’s a good conversion rate?

The average retail conversion rate worldwide including the average conversion rate on Etsy is a meek 2.86%. In other words, out of 100 web visitors, only 2.86 of them will end up making a purchase.

The hard fact is that it’s not enough to drive traffic to your store. Additionally, you must optimize your website for conversion so that shoppers eventually pull the trigger after browsing through your products.

So, how do you improve your average conversion rate? 

First, it all comes down to tracking the conversion events of your pages across your online store. Then, it’s up to you to tweak those pages so you get the results you desire and win big.

How to measure your Shopify conversion rate on Google Analytics

Being able to measure your average Shopify conversion rate is vital to maximizing your eCommerce efforts. Unfortunately, without a clear picture of your store’s performance, you won’t know which areas your website needs to improve.

The best tool we recommend to measure your Shopify conversion rate is Google Analytics. It’s an excellent platform that tracks your website traffic and provides relevant insights on visitor behavior. 

First of all, the tool is free for all businesses and you don’t need a specialized version for eCommerce to start using it. Aside from your Shopify conversion rate, Google Analytics will also provide your store with data on the following:

• Bounce rate
• Unique and returning visitors
• Website speed and performance
• Facebook product advertising results
• And more

Thankfully, measuring your Shopify store’s performance on Google Analytics is a straightforward process.

Here’s how you can start measuring your conversion rate on GA in three simple steps:

1. Go to the Google Analytics dashboard and click on “Conversions”.

2. Select “Ecommerce” and head over to “Overview”.

3. From there, you’ll get access to a chart of your store’s performance over a specific period, along with your conversion rate underneath the chart.

Now, we recommend that you start using Google Analytics once you hit at least 500 monthly visitors. If you’ve had more than 500 visitors, you want to segment that traffic into a timeframe, such as your visitors from last month.

How to use Google Analytics to improve your conversion rate

Get the most out of Google Analytics with automation

While Google Analytics is a great tool for measuring your performance, you don’t have to stop there. You can also use automation to take your Google Analytics efforts to the next level.

An automation platform like MESA helps you define Shopify workflows for repeatable tasks. It is designed with an eCommerce store in mind and can help you maximize each of Google Analytics’ features. You can automate workflows to get deep insights into your store’s performance and improve it for better results.

One thing that Google Analytics lacks is the ability to track order returns. MESA allows you to automate workflows to monitor which products result in the most refunds, so you can take them off your store and stop returns from hurting your conversions.

Tips to boost your conversion rate on Shopify

We recommend that you measure your Shopify store’s performance at least once a week to see how it’s growing over time. 

In the meantime, there are little changes you can do on your website that deliver big results.

Here are some of the best things you can do to improve your Shopify store’s conversion rate: 

Optimize Your Shopify store for Mobile

More and more people are using their mobile device to make their purchases. By 2021, mobile sales will represent around 54% of total eCommerce revenue. 

So, if your website isn’t optimized for mobile, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. You need to make sure that your website is responsive and looks good on all devices, so customers can easily make their purchases.

Send Cart Abandonment Emails

Cart abandonment may be a pain to deal with, but it doesn’t have to represent the end of a sale. Sometimes, all it takes to boost conversions and win customers back is to follow up via email. 

Here’s a great example of what a cart abandonment looks like from Jack Wills:

In the example, they’re giving the customer a second chance to finish their purchase. Additionally, they include other product recommendations if the item they added to their cart wasn’t what they wanted. 

There are many tools you can download on Shopify to send automated cart abandonment emails. Be sure to read our guide to reducing abandoned carts.

Improve Your Checkout Page

The checkout page is a vital touch point of the customer journey. It’s the last page that a visitor goes through before eventually becoming a paying customer.

Optimizing the checkout page goes hand in hand with improving your conversion rate. You want to remove any friction to your page so that customers can make their purchase with no problems.

Additionally, you can include various payment methods for the customer to do their purchase. By giving them more choices, they’ll find the right payment service that fits them.

Use High-Quality Product Images

It may come across as a no-brainer, but your product pages need solid images. According to ⅔ of customers, high quality images influence their decision to purchase a product. 

First, make sure to include various product images that show your item from different angles, so the customer gets a full picture of your product. Then, we recommend that you hire a professional photographer to help you do this. 

Next, to take it up a notch, consider adding a product video to your pages, like top eCommerce brand Asos does regularly as part of their descriptions:

Video production can be challenging but there is a Shopify video app that aims to make that significantly easier for merchants.

Leverage Positive Reviews and Testimonials

Obviously, social proof is a powerful trigger for conversion: 90% of customers use reviews from others as part of their purchase process. You can include customer reviews and testimonials in your products pages, just like The North Face does here:

To take it even further, you can include user-generated content from your own customers to showcase your products. After all, who’s better to promote your products than previous customers themselves? 

Wrapping Things Up

To summarize, improving your conversion rate doesn’t have to be rocket science. By using Google Analytics, you can identify blind spots on your website that are killing conversions and improve your marketing workflows. Then, you’ll generate more sales and drive better-quality traffic as a result.