7 Useful Google Analytics Reports for Ecommerce Store Owners

Guest Author

Your Ecommerce website has a lot of holes that are draining your bank account.

And if you’re not analyzing these Google Analytics reports, then the time will come that your Ecommerce ship will sink drastically.

It’s no secret that Google Analytics is a vital component of your responsibility as an Ecommerce store merchant.

In order for your Ecommerce company to thrive and succeed in the Ecommerce industry, you need to be able to make informed decisions: quick enough that you won’t be left out to dry, and sound enough that you can still afford to stay ahead of your competition.

Here are ten Google Analytics reports that give you a concrete idea on how your Ecommerce website is doing – right from the landing page traffic, to the conversions, page speed, mobile optimization and even to the shopping behavior of your target market.

Let’s dive in.

Reports on Website and Mobile Performance

1. Funnel Visualization Report

The Funnel Visualization report tells you how much of your website traffic is dropping off at each step of your funnel.

Simply put, Funnel Visualization lets you know how many of your traffic reach each step of your funnel and how many of them leave the funnel at that step.

In this example, we can see a three-step funnel: “Viewed shopping cart” is the first step, “Manage address page” is the second step, and, “Payment information page” is the third step.

{<1>}funnel visualization

Out of these three steps, which step has the lowest conversion rate?

We see that the first step, “Viewed shopping cart” converts only at 50% compared to the others.

Out of the 1,413 visitors, only 712 proceeded to the next step. The others went somewhere else and so they’ve fallen out of your funnel.

What does this mean?

This means that this step – going from viewing the shopping cart and then going to managing the delivery address – may be considered as your biggest money leak in your Ecommerce website.

Where it is: Go to Conversions > Goals > Funnel Visualization.

Why it’s important to you: Because this report tells you if a significant chunk of your traffic is leaving your website on a specific step of your funnel, you can then use this information to address this issue and improve your steps to improve the buying experience of your customer.

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2. Page Load Time Report

In the Page Timings report, you can see the Average Page Load Time which is essentially the average amount of time (seconds) it takes from your specific website page to load.

How does Google measure a page load? It’s from the initiation of the page view (starts when someone clicks on the page link) until the load completion (full page load) in the person’s browser.

In this example report, you can see that the Avg. Page Load Time is 3.69 seconds. Majority of the site pages here are performing better – their pages load faster than the average page load time.

However, in the four instances which are highlighted, you can view that these pages perform poorer than others – their page load times are 29%, 296%, 52% and 158% slower than the average page load time.

{<2>}page load time report

Where it is: Go to Behavior > Site Speed > Page Timings.

Why it’s important to you: 40% of people abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load. Because this report informs you of the different website pages along with their loading times, you can use this data to isolate the poor-performing pages and work with your team of developers to increase page load times and boost performance.

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3. Exit Rate per Page Report

In the Ecommerce industry, marketing your company with your products is important so you can drive significant traffic to your website.

So it’s only necessary for you to know which specific pages get the most of the traffic – and which specific pages turn people off. The Exit Rate per Page report does this job for you.

Exit Rate per Page shows you how many people who were on a specific page left the website after viewing that page.

The Exit Rate per Page doesn’t tell you how many pages they browsed or what particular page they entered your website with.

Your Exit Rate just tells you the last page that they viewed before they decided to leave.

In this example report, what you’re viewing is the site’s average Exit Rate is 22.82%. A high exit rate means a high percentage of people leaving your website from that particular page.

With the Exit Page Report, it’s actually better to see lower figures than higher-than-averages.

{<3>}exit page report

Where it is: Go to Behavior > Site Content > All Pages.

Change your chart type from “Data” to “Performance” and then select the dropdown option “Exit” on the second column.

Why it’s important to you: Knowing which specific pages have the highest Exit Rates gives you an idea as to which are your culprits that cause people to leave your Ecommerce site. To give you an idea, here are 5 that may cause an alarmingly high Exit Rate per page. You web page may be:

  • visually unappealing or unprofessionally designed
  • not user-friendly/intuitive
  • unable to meet the visitor’s expectations
  • lacking in a call-to-action button; or,
  • bombarding the visitor with too much call-to-actions

Learn More:

Reports On Customer Acquisition Pattern

4. Shopping Behavior Analysis Report

The Shopping Behavior Analysis report informs you of three things:

  1. The number of sessions at each stage of your purchase funnel
  2. How many sessions moved from one step to the next, and
  3. How many of your website visitors left the sales funnel at each stage.

By analyzing this report, you can assess your visitor’s shopping experience in your website, starting from the product exposure until the transaction.

How do you measure the abandonment of the purchase funnel at each stage?

Simply look at the red arrow at the bottom of each step – this means that these visitors didn’t complete any additional steps of the funnel during the same session.

In the Shopping Behavior Analysis report below, you can see that 63.76% of visitors with active shopping activity (have viewed a product, have added a product to cart and have even reached the check-out page) do not proceed with finalizing their transaction.

They’ve made an effort to go through all that process, just to abandon the check-out page in the end.

{<4>}Shopping Behavior Analysis report

Where it is: Make sure that Enhanced Ecommerce tracking is set up on your Ecommerce website.

Go to Conversions > Ecommerce > Shopping Analysis > Shopping Behavior Analysis report.

Why it’s important to you: Because this report allows you to analyze the steps in the sales funnel which generated the highest abandonment rates, you can get this information and apply it by identifying the pages with the lowest conversion rates.

In the example above you saw that the Check-out page had the greatest abandonment.

Possible action points that you can look into are reducing the friction so more people can easily input their payment information or including trust signs in the page so that the visitors will be more confident in sharing their personal data with you.

Learn More:

5. Checkout Behavior Analysis Report

The Checkout Behavior Analysis report also analyses the shopping behavior of your customers by telling you how many visitors were able to complete the sales funnel and moved through your checkout process, specifically.

Through this report, you will have an idea as to how many of your customers went and finalized your billing, shipping, payment and completed transaction pages. Consider this report as your tracker when it comes to figuring out how many users completed each step of the checkout funnel, and how many abandoned it.

Let’s take a look at this sample report:

{<5>}checkout behavior analysis report

Out of these 5 steps in the checkout funnel, we see that the step which had the greatest abandonment percentage is the Payment Information page.

62.2% of the users who had checkout activity (account sign in, shipping, and even billing address) opted to abandon the process when they were asked to share their payment information with the Ecommerce merchant.

Where it is: Again, check and be sure that Enhanced Ecommerce tracking is set up on your ecommerce website.

Go to Conversions > Ecommerce > Shopping Analysis > Checkout Behavior Analysis report.

Why it’s important to you: The average checkout abandonment rate is 67.4%.

When you set up Enhanced Ecommerce in your Google Analytics report, you get access to your Checkout Behavior Analysis report which gives you a clear overview as to exactly where in the checkout process most of your consumers are leaving.

Through this data you obtain from the report, you get to realize which page is responsible for leaking you money.

In the above example, 62.2% abandoned the process at the Payment Information page.

Most of the time, consumers choose to abandon the checkout process when:

  • there are hidden charges on the checkout page,
  • they still had to register to purchase the product,
  • there are unclear delivery details,
  • there’s a lengthy checkout process, or,
  • even because there’s no phone number provided on the website!

Learn More:

Reports on Conversions

6. Conversions per Device Report

The Conversions per device report shows you if there are issues arising from your website based on different devices used to access it.

Usually it’s considered as a low-hanging fruit in Ecommerce because optimizing your website for mobile devices can help you increase “add to cart” and “sales” conversions.

In this example, we can see a screenshot of a Conversion by device report:

{<6>}conversion per device report

In analyzing this report, what you should look into is the discrepancy of conversion rates between different devices.

If we look at the above example, desktop converted at 0.93% while tablets did 0.63% and mobile generated 0.19% of the conversions.

Where it is: Audience > Mobile > Overview

Why it’s important to you: Based on recent data, desktop users convert at 8.52% while mobile devices convert from 3.65% to 8.58%, varying by the device.

If we look at it from a general point of view, tablets typically convert 10% less than desktops, and mobiles do one third to one quarter of the rate of traditional or tablet devices.

Going by these figures, the conversion rate per device is lower than normal discrepancy ranges.

You may want to work with your team in figuring out why this is the case – testing of your traffic, optimizing your Ecommerce website for mobile and producing different versions for each device may work in your favor.

Learn More:

7. Conversions per Traffic Source Report

Which traffic source should you invest majority of your time, energy and financial resources into?

The Conversions per Traffic Source report makes sure that you’re getting you’re money’s worth as it provides you with a list of your traffic sources along with their respective Ecommerce conversion rates.

Let’s check out this example:

{<7>}conversions per traffic source report

Out of the 6 traffic types, email yielded the greatest conversions, with referral traffic as second. On the other end of the spectrum, the least effective traffic type was the traffic that came from banners.

Where it is: Audience > Mobile > Overview

Why it’s important to you: If you know which traffic source is most effective in generating Ecommerce conversions, then you’re confident that you’re investing in the right channel.

Learn More:

Conclusion

For you to succeed in the Ecommerce industry, you need to always be testing and always be analyzing the performance of your marketing and website by accessing these Google Analytics reports.

It is only through evaluating where you’re lacking and where you’re leaking money will you boost your sales and increase your revenue over time.

Out of the 7 reports, which one are you most keen to view today?

Please share your opinion in the comments below.