Analytics & Data
Our coverage of analytics recognizes that data drives ecommerce but collecting that data and interpreting it can be confusing. Our huge library of Google Analytics articles ranges from basic setup to the sophisticated interpretation of on-site activity of visitors and customers. We also analyze data security, blockchain topics, and ancillary tools such as Google Tag Manager and Google Data Studio.
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Analytics & Data
How to Manage, Visualize KPIs for Ecommerce
April 26, 2020 • Anna Kayfitz
This post will offer a framework for identifying, tracking, and visualizing key performance indicators. It applies to all company sizes — big and small. Start by establishing the most important metrics for your business.
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Analytics & Data
Workarounds for Errors in Google Analytics
March 26, 2020 • Morgan Jones
One-hundred percent of all Google Analytics implementations have broken at some point. The impact can range from minimal to extreme. An ecommerce example is when sales as reported by Google Analytics does not align with actual results from a shopping cart.
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Analytics & Data
6 Ways Geography Impacts Ecommerce Conversions
February 26, 2020 • Anna Kayfitz
Merchants are typically aware of the states or countries where their customers reside. Many variables can impact sales or performance by region. In this post, I'll address six of them.
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Analytics & Data
Using Data Studio to Convert Multi-currency Reports
January 28, 2020 • Morgan Jones
Google's Analytics’ conversion of currencies is straightforward. However, setting the conversion date to equal the date of the transaction may not be an option, forcing merchants to convert currencies manually. Google Data Studio can solve this manual conversion hurdle.
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Analytics & Data
Removing Personal Data from Google Analytics
January 10, 2020 • Morgan Jones
Google Analytics prohibits the collection of personally identifiable information. Users of Google Analytics should detect and then delete the PII if necessary. I'll explain how to do that in this post.
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Analytics & Data
7 Ways Big Data Will Impact Ecommerce in 2020
January 8, 2020 • Anna Kayfitz
As ecommerce grows, so does the data that is stored. Only a fraction of that data is utilized, however. But data scientists are getting better at merging, standardizing, and analyzing. What follows are my data predictions for ecommerce for 2020.
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Analytics & Data
Using COUNTIF, COUNTIFS in Google Sheets to Sort, Analyze Data
December 31, 2019 • Armando Roggio
Whether you're researching keywords, reviewing lead sources, or analyzing customer attributes from a CRM export, Google Sheets' COUNTIF and COUNTIFS formulas can help. Recently, a multichannel retailer wanted to analyze five years' worth of lead and conversion data.
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Analytics & Data
7 Ways to Analyze Black Friday, Cyber Monday Sales
December 5, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz
Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales are complete. Marketers should scrutinize the results for insights on future promotions. There are multiple approaches. In this post, I'll review seven ways to analyze the results from Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
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Analytics & Data
Predicting Profits from Black Friday Promotions
November 22, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz
The Black Friday weekend is near. Many merchants will lower prices, add promotions, and compete in one of the biggest retail days of the year. By analyzing prior year results, merchants can estimate current-year sales and profits and the impact of promotions.
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Analytics & Data
19 Free Tutorials for Google Analytics
November 18, 2019 • Sig Ueland
Google Analytics may be the most important application to understand the behavior of your visitors. And whether you’re a beginner or an experienced user, there are many free resources to help. Here is a list of free tutorials for Google Analytics.
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Analytics & Data
5 Ways Data Science Drives Ecommerce Revenue
November 5, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz
Data science is the processing and analysis of large datasets — structured or unstructured. Tweets from customers and prospects is an example of unstructured data. Here are five data-science uses to drive ecommerce sales.
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Analytics & Data
Google Analytics: Introduction to Cross-device Reporting
October 15, 2019 • Morgan Jones
There has been a seismic shift in website traffic in the past several years, from desktop to mobile. Google Analytics has rolled out the beta version of cross-device reporting to inform merchants of how their shoppers are interacting via multiple devices.
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Analytics & Data
16 Business Intelligence Tools for Ecommerce
October 11, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz
A business intelligence tool can provide helpful data to make critical, daily decisions. There are many such tools to choose from. In this post, I'll list popular business intelligence tools that I'm familiar with and offer my perspective on each.
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Analytics & Data
How to Choose KPIs for Your Ecommerce Business
September 24, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz
Key performance indicators apply to many aspects of an ecommerce business. Examples include marketing KPIs to track, say, coupon redemptions or return on investment from advertising. In this post, I'll offer tips for building your ultimate KPI dashboard.
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Analytics & Data
How to Determine Survey Size for Meaningful Results
September 5, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz
When conducting surveys by email, polling on a website, or approaching people on the street, the main hurdle is knowing how many responses to collect. The following formula can predict the necessary sample size based on your population, such as users, email addresses, or potential customers.
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Analytics & Data
How to Audit Integration of Google Analytics, Ads
September 4, 2019 • Morgan Jones
Google Ads is an important platform for online merchants. Google Analytics is another. Combining the two provides rich, actionable data to grow traffic and sales — assuming that tracking is set up correctly. In this post, I'll provide an audit process to confirm proper integration.
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Analytics & Data
10 Ways Bad Data Hurts an Ecommerce Business
August 13, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz
Data is essential for ecommerce businesses. Order quantities, shipping addresses, sales history, marketing performance — all rely on accurate data. Thus missing or inaccurate data can harm a business. Here are 10 ways that poor data can reduce ecommerce performance.
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Analytics & Data
Using Google Analytics’ Learning Resources
August 12, 2019 • Morgan Jones
Google Analytics is sophisticated and comprehensive. Getting started — logging in, using the menu, viewing the reports — is straightforward. But interpreting the data can be difficult. Fortunately, Google Analytics offers many learning resources to help.
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Analytics & Data
Need Data for a Key Decision? Try These 8 Sources
July 16, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz
Data drives most businesses. But what happens when you lack data to make a critical decision? How do you collect the data, and at what cost?
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Analytics & Data
Google Analytics: Common Mistakes from Ecommerce Merchants
July 5, 2019 • Morgan Jones
Google Analytics provides impactful data that can help ecommerce merchants. But installed incorrectly, Google Analytics can produce inaccurate reporting. In this post, I'll address common mistakes from merchants in installing Google Analytics and analyzing its data.
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Analytics & Data
7 Gaps in Google Analytics That Require Additional Tools
June 23, 2019 • Morgan Jones
Google Analytics is a powerful, free web analytics platform. However, it has gaps that are better served by other tools. I'll address those gaps and tools in this post.
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Analytics & Data
Using Attribution Modeling in Google Analytics
May 24, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz
Marketing attribution is the process of identifying sources or channels that led to a desired outcome, such as a sale or a subscription. Google Analytics offers attribution modeling at Conversions > Attribution > Model Comparison Tool. There are a handful of models to select from.
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Analytics & Data
Use Market Basket Analysis to Boost Cross-sales, Average Order Values
May 9, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz
Market basket analysis is based on the idea that a customer who buys product A is likely to buy product B, too. The model seeks to find relationships among purchases — a customer who buys pasta likely needs pasta sauce. The model applies at an item level or to a group of items or categories.
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Analytics & Data
Analyze Click Paths in Google Analytics to Improve Conversions
May 8, 2019 • Morgan Jones
Monitoring the navigation of visitors can help ecommerce merchants identify bottlenecks to the checkout page. There are two ways to analyze paths in Google Analytics: Behavior Flow and Navigation analysis.
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Analytics & Data
How to Merge Data from Multiple Sources into a Single Platform
May 1, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz
Migrating to a new customer management platform may require merging multiple data sources or adding a new source. In this post, I’ll review how to merge multiple sources into a ...
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Analytics & Data
8 Ways to Improve Marketing Automation for Ecommerce
April 8, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz
Marketing automation can do more with email than send mass deployments and track opens and clicks. Marketing automation can integrate email with your customer management platform to create relevant campaigns. In this post, I'll review eight ways to accelerate an ecommerce marketing automation program.
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Analytics & Data
Using Alerts in Google Analytics for Slow Site Speeds
April 4, 2019 • Morgan Jones
I’ve addressed site speed reports in Google Analytics. Site speed is critical for conversions and, increasingly, for search engine rankings. In this post, I’ll explain how to set up Custom Alerts in ...
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Analytics & Data
Using Google Data Studio to Report Gross Profit by SKU
March 18, 2019 • Morgan Jones
In "Using Google Analytics to Track Profitability by Product," I explained how to import product cost into Google Analytics to calculate gross profit for each item sold. It was a tricky exercise. I received feedback and questions. In this post. I'll break the process down by using Google Data Studio and data blending.
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Analytics & Data
Google Analytics: Tracking Sales When Multiple Sites Use a Single Checkout
February 26, 2019 • Morgan Jones
Larger ecommerce companies sometimes create multiple branded websites that feed into a single checkout. For those companies, tracking which site generated the business — revenue — can be tricky. In this post, I will provide a method for reporting the “source of business” metrics in Google Analytics.
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Analytics & Data
Using Excel to Forecast Sales, Expenses, More
February 10, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz
Forecasting sales is useful for many reasons, such as inventory management, investor relations, and setting expense and marketing budgets. But producing accurate forecasts can be confusing. In this post, I'll explain how to generate forecasts using Microsoft Excel.