The 3 GA4 Updates Most Relevant To eCommerce Stores
There have been a few major changes with GA4 in the past few weeks which are relevant to eCommerce stores. I've released some brand new updated lessons in GA4 for eCommerce and summarised the changes for you below.
Shopify’s Native Integration
Google finally released a Shopify native integration via the Google sales channel app! It’s fast and easy to setup - but is it a full eCommerce integration?
The answer isn’t straightforward - I've run through the native integration in detail, summarising the pros and cons of this integration, but the long and short of it is: it's incomplete.
Firstly, it's a client-side integration, much like the Shopify native integration we used for Universal Analytics, and it sends data through the browser to GA. Whilst this used to work for us in the past, privacy restrictions and the phase out of third party cookies is driving the eCommerce industry towards server-side integrations, where data bypasses the browser and is instead sent directly from Shopify's server, through a Cloud host to Google Analytics. For more detail, check out my video on Client side vs Server side integrations.
Secondly, it's missing several eCommerce events which give a richness to our data insights including Collection page views and checkout steps. I strongly recommend to everyone I work with: if you're setting up a fresh account (which GA4 is), do it right from the start, and you'll avoid a raft of headaches later. I go into full detail on this in my updated lessons on integration.
Custom Channel Groupings
When GA4 was first released, we only had Default Channel Groupings for our traffic and, unlike in UA, they were not editable. This meant we had to match various platform UTM tags to Google's default requirements as best we could, or let go of the traffic we couldn't categorise.
Google has finally enabled us to create Custom Channel Groupings, so we can more accurately group traffic where UTMs cannot be customised.
Unlike UA, we cannot edit our Default Channel Groupings anymore, however we are able to create new Custom Channel groupings which can be manipulated in Explore reports. I show you how to identify mis-categorised traffic and create Custom Channel groups in my latest lessons on Reports.
Conversion Rate & Bounce rate, welcome back!
Google has finally added Conversion rate to our GA4 reports again - this time, scoped by sessions and users, which is a real improvement on UA's sessions-only conversion rate. A user-scoped conversion rate enables us to better analyse our top of funnel traffic over several sessions through GA4's new User ID tracking, using our First user acquisition and custom Explore reports, which is absolute gold for PPC managers like myself, in the wake of iOS14's impact on tracking.
Bounce rate is back as well, probably due to some public outcry - I still prefer the newer metrics Engagement Rate and Average Engagement Time, which I’m finding provides some great insight into the quality of my paid traffic. I cover this in more detail in 3 ways to use GA4 to help your eCommerce store grow.
Are you using GA4 for your store yet?
If you're not, you're in for a world of pain in transitioning once July 2023 hits. GA4 for eCommerce is a learn-as-you-go online course designed specifically for anyone working in eCommerce to learn GA4 and derive better insights to grow your revenue.
And as always, pleas share any thoughts or questions my way!