Google Analytics does a fantastic job of providing the detailed web analytics data necessary for many businesses to make informed decisions about web marketing, and all for free.

This blog post deals with adding a Google Shopping reporting feature that can be implemented to track and report analytic data related to traffic and purchases via your Google merchant feed, Google search and the Google Product search.

Separating Shopping Traffic From Organic

Google Analytics will help you track your major buckets (medium) of traffic including: direct, organic, CPC, and referral.  CPC (Cost Per Click) traffic could be referencing traffic from Google, just from the sponsored section of the SERP and not from the organic section we’re so familiar with.

In an unaltered format, your Analytics data is reporting all of the Google Shopping customers as coming from organic traffic. With the right customizations to your feed and Google Analytics, you can separate these sources.

This level of reporting is made possible by augmenting the Google Merchant feed to include UTM tags which instructs Google Analytics how to report the data.  This level of information is extremely helpful with making strategic online marketing decisions.  It now provides visits, revenue, transactions, average value, conversion rate and per visit value from Google Shopping visits.

In addition to this reporting, UTM tags can be used with many other sources such as display advertising and email marketing.

If your analytics are not set up for this feature, or even if you need assistance setting up your e-commerce site for the Google Merchant feed, feel free to contact us for help.