Every digital marketer or online business owner would agree to the fact that Google Analytics is a great tool for analyzing user behavior, traffic, attribution, and many more things on a regular basis. Especially this is a great tool for almost all E-commerce websites. When we talk of GA-4, it is different from your typical software upgrade. GA-4 is an entirely different platform, and setting up this upgrade on e-commerce sites is the need of the hour. But we also know that setting up GA-4 on E-commerce sites is a challenging task. Here's a step-by-step guide to setting GA-4 on various e-commerce sites and better understanding your customers to boost the conversion rate on your site.
1. Upgrade to GA4 if you already have UA
The first step we have to make up is upgrading our setup to GA4 if you already have UA. By upgrading to GA4, you will be able to take advantage of its improved functionality, more powerful data analysis, and enhanced reporting capabilities. The earlier you upgrade, the more insights ad historical data you will have in GA4. Here's how to upgrade from UA to GA4.
Go to GA4 Setup Assistant
Select 'Create Property' to continue
2. Adding The GA4 Tag
Now, as you are done creating the GA4 properly in your Google Analytics account, you will need to create a new GA4 tag and add the tracking id to it. The steps for adding the tag vary depending on the platform you are using. For example, if you are using WordPress, you should be able to find instructions on how to add the tag in the settings menu. Once you have added the tag, you can begin tracking your site by creating goals and setting up filters. Here's how you can do it.
Go to the Data Stream menu.
Now under the data stream, you will need to paste your measurement ID>
For example, the Measurement ID for my GA4 property is G-QE8851QGGZ.
After pasting, go to settings. Enable "Google Analytics 4" and save the changes.
3. Time to add the GTM container to your site
To install the GTM container, the very first thing you need to do is to create a GTM account. Then, enter all the necessary information to create your account and container. This will give you a unique container ID and a code snippet that you can add to your website. Here's how the installation process of container works.
Copy and paste the code snippets into your website as instructed in the Install Tag Manager box.
Place the <script> code snippet in the <head> of your web page's HTML output, preferably as close to the opening <head> tag as possible but below any dataLayer declarations.
Place the <noscript> code snippet immediately after the <body> tag in your HTML output.
Finally, you can publish the container to your website and start tracking your data.
4. Integrate GA4 to GTM
Integrating GA4 with Google Tag Manager (GTM) helps to streamline the process of setting up and managing tags, allowing you to manage all your tracking from one centralized location. It also helps to ensure that tracking is accurate and consistent across all your marketing channels. So, here's how to integrate GA4 into GTM
The first step is to create a new tag for our GA4 property.
Next, select 'Tag Configuration' and choose 'Google Analytics: GA4 Configuration' as the tag type.
Now, paste the Measurement ID
Add a trigger and click create "Tag."
Select 'All Pages' as the trigger and click 'Save.
Now, you have successfully integrated GA4 with GTM.
5. Previewing the tags
Now that you have created the tags and have successfully integrated the GA4 to GTM, it's time to preview them so that you can check whether they are functioning properly or not. Here's how you can do that.
To preview the tags, select 'Preview' in the window's top right corner.
Now, enter the URL of your website and click 'Connect' to preview your website.
See that Tag Assistant has connected.
The new GA4 tag has fired and is now ready to function.
6. Publishing the tags
Once you have previewed your tags and they are functioning properly, it's time to take the final call and publish the tags. For the same, you have to follow these steps.
Go to the "tags" section.
Click on "submit" and then name the version.
Now, your GA4 Tags have been finally added to your website.
7. Conversion setup
Now comes the final step of the whole process, which is the conversion process. For that, you need to follow these few steps
Click on the blue plus sign showing up in the top right corner.
Name the tag and select Trigger Configuration.
Choose a custom event as the Trigger type.
Add a Data layer to event names.
Save the trigger and save the tags.
Once done, you can also check and preview your GA4 Tags.
In conclusion, setting up Google Analytics 4 for your e-commerce store is a straightforward process that can be completed in just a few simple steps. Once the setup is complete, you will be able to view real-time reports as soon as people begin making purchases, and your standard reports will start showing e-commerce events within a day.
