Enhanced Ecommerce (Advanced Ecommerce) Google Analytics: Overview of New Features

Not so long ago, Google Analytics introduced a new feature called Enhanced Ecommerce or Enhanced E-Commerce . It significantly exceeds the capabilities of the standard e-commerce module and allows you to get a lot of additional information about the user’s actions, interaction with the goods, his path to completing the purchase process and Other

options for implementing Google Analytics on Enhanced Ecommerce or Advanced Ecommerce are two options :

• through the tracking code;
• using the Google Tag Manager.

Regardless of which option you choose for yourself, you need to tune in to working closely with the developers of the site or a full-time specialist with access to the source code of the site. It is impossible to do without making significant, but not complicated additions to the source code of the site, but the time spent on introducing advanced electronic commerce will not be in vain. So what does the implementation give us?

Following the implementation recommendations, we get the opportunity to find out the following information (more details below):

• the effectiveness of lists, catalogs and blocks of goods used on the site (for example, a standard catalog on the site, a block of recommended products or most frequently purchased, etc.);
• the visitor’s interaction with the basket on the site in the context of each product (adding, removing, the ratio of views of the product’s card to the number of purchased, etc.);
• about the process of purchasing goods, setting up the steps that the user goes through before the actual purchase (for example, the process may be as follows: visiting the basket, checking the address, choosing a payment method);
• A general picture of the buying process on your site in the form of the following steps:

○ all visits to the site;
○ visits during which visitors viewed the product card;
○ visits at which visitors put the product in the basket;
○ visits at which visitors began the checkout process;
○ visits at which visitors made a purchase;
○ on the effectiveness of internal marketing campaigns on the site.

Perhaps this is the main thing that you should pay special attention to. Now we ’ll take a closer look at each of these items and learn more about what Enhanced Ecommerce or advanced Google Analytics e-commerce are .

Reports containing information collected using the embedded tracking code are located in the standard reports block Conversions :


Advanced e-commerce reports

Unfortunately, not all report names are fully visible, but this is not a problem. Hover over one of the items and after a while a tooltip will appear indicating the full name of the report:


Tips in the report name

Please note that not all reports will contain information without first implementing the Google Analytics Advanced Ecommerce Tracking Code. For example, by setting up tracking of the effectiveness of lists, you won’t receive any information about the behavior at checkout.

Now let's move on toAn overview of Enhanced Ecommerce Google Analytics features with sample reports after implementation.

Let's start with the general buying process used in advanced e-commerce.

This process is described by five steps, steps, or segments of visitors (I described them a bit above). This is the foundation of advanced ecommerce. You will not be able to change these stages / segments or rename them. Let's see how these segments look in the reports:


The purchase process in Enhanced Ecommerce

By clicking on the block below each segment, you get the opportunity to create an advanced segment that you can use when working with reports:


Creating an e-commerce segment

Thus, you can look at the behavior of visitors, for example, who put the goods in the basket, but did not go to the checkout procedure.

Below is an informative table in which you can specify one of the available parameters for more information. For example, about the type of users (new or returning) or the geographic location of the visitor and a number of others:


Additional information about the purchase process

After you configure the tracking of product lists on the site, the information appears in the report Product


List Efficiency : Product List Efficiency

What are Product Lists ? Each site that is used as a sales tool has at least one list of products - thiscatalog. More advanced online stores have additional blocks such as “they also buy this product”, “recommended to you”, “bestsellers” and others like that. Their main task is to induce the desire of the site visitor to complete the purchase of additional goods, thereby increasing the amount of the check.

Enhanced ecommerce now allows you to track the effectiveness of such product listings. You can find out which list most of all displays products to visitors, which list most often visitors click on, which positions in the list are most clickable.

An example report may be the following:


Example report on product listings

As you can see, most of the products are shown in the Product Catalog list, it also has the highest CTR of the list. This means that for the products shown in this list, they click and go to the product cards most often.

If you select one of the lists, we will see which products were displayed in it, how often and on which of them visitors clicked:


Example of a report on a product in the list

Total setting of the product list includes two items:

• fixing setting which products are shown at what position;
• setting fixation of information about the list, position and product on which the click was made and the transition to the product card.

Settings such as [/ I] detailed viewing of product information should not be avoided . It will allow you to evaluate the effectiveness of the product. Information is available in the report of the same name on the Buyers Behavior tab :



Sample report:


Sample product performance report

Please note that indicators such as Add to Cart and Remove from Cart appeared in this report . To get this information to Google Analytics, you need to set up interaction with the basket (this is another innovation of the advanced e-commerce Google Analytics).

I would recommend using a product card to configure this feature, as First, you can record the fact of viewing product information, and then interact with the basket. When adding goods to the basket without viewing the product card, the coefficient of the coefficient of selected goods may not be correct .

Now we have the following information: the client visited our website, saw the product in one of the lists, clicked on it, looked at the detailed information and decided to put it in the basket. All these steps have been recorded. Really great?

The next step is the buying process.
They are usually similar, but not always the same. You need to highlight the main stages of the purchase, come up with informative names for them and set up their tracking on your website.

Setting up the steps of the buying process is divided into two parts:

• setting their fixation on the site;
• setting up the display of information in the report.

The first step involves finalizing the source code of the site’s pages with the participation of the appropriate specialist, and the second can be done by you on your own in the control panel:


Stages of the purchase

Once everything is implemented, you will receive the following information in the report Behavior during the purchase:


An example of the specified procedure in advanced e-commerce

As you can see, the first four stages are the goals that we created in the control panel, the fifth stage is called Sessions with transactions , it displays the number of sessions, completing buy.

At the next stage of setup, you need to record purchases, i.e., transfer transaction data to Google Analytics. As before, having implemented the necessary recommendations, additional information appears in the reports:


E-commerce overview

You can evaluate the effectiveness of each product:


Product performance in a transaction

The Sales performance report is becoming more informative. Here you can view information on a single transaction, and for a specific day:


Overview of sales performance

Additional information is also displayed in other reports of the E-commerce group .

You can evaluate the performance of your affiliates or partners. For this, it is necessary (when fixing the transaction) to transfer information about them, after which the following information will be available in the reports:


Example of a partner report

Do you think that the setup of Enhanced Ecommerce Google Analytics is completed? No, you are mistaken. We can take advantage of a couple more features.

One of them is accounting for the return of goods . Previously, it was also possible to edit the composition of the transaction, but we did not have information in the reports on which goods were returned. Now we have been given such an opportunity. Here is the result of setting up tracking returns in one of the reports:


Example of a report with information on returning goods

Another interesting and useful feature of the new advanced e-commerce Google Analytics is the accounting of internal promotions or campaigns . With its help, you can track the effectiveness of banners posted on the site, various messages about discounts, etc. This opportunity will be revealed in one of the nearest materials.

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