Some businessmen in shopify development company still consider Google Analytics or Yandex.Metrica to be the only means for studying the effectiveness of advertising campaigns and equals that very ‘End-to-end analytics’. So they have a quite reasonable question: why use an additional solution from a third party and pay extra money for that, if I have all the necessary data anyway? Anton Oshkin, co-owner of ROMI center, explains what a fully-fledged end-to-end analytics is and why its implementation can become a growth driver even for a small online store.

Brief fundamentals

End-to-end Analytics is not only data collected with one of the embedded Google or Yandex analytics systems. It collects the full set of the information about the effectiveness of search platforms advertising and social networks promotion, together with data from CRM in order to assess the payback of investments in promotion, and information from call tracking systems, if there is one in your company. Although, as practice shows, for small and medium-sized e-commerce companies, the use of such a solution is not always justified due to the business’ size. It should be considered that it is not enough to implement any system, it is also important to train the whole team to use it.

There can be two large ways of configuring end-to-end analytics

1. To set up data transferring from advertising platforms to Google Analytics using connectors. This way help you quickly collect the necessary data and upload it in an easy-to-view form:

via the built-in Google Analytics reports. We will review the most useful of them for e-commerce market players. An example of the general report interface:

via dashboards of the connector supplier. For example, a report might look like this:

2. Purchase of a ready-made end-to-end analytics solution. As a rule, developers of such systems do without reference to Google Analytics. They install their own counters on the site to receive traffic data, integrate the client’s advertising channels and CRM data according to their algorithms. Reports are also generated based on the platform so that Google Analytics or Google Data Studio are not involved in this process.

Business control: current position and growth vectors

Even if you are the owner of not only an online store, but also an offline point of sale, you are likely to have noticed that customers are more and more often buying online. Of course, it happens on condition that there is an appropriate level of customer service, a wisely organized product catalogue, a relevant unique selling proposition and a promotional message.

How to learn what potential buyers of your online store like and don’t like, speaking on those who visit the catalogue or click on another banner? Is the goods choice as needed? Are you targeting the demanded audience? And finally, is your offer acceptable for the residents of the region where goods are sold? End-to-end analytics will answer these and other questions.

All about sales

Even if, as a business owner, it seems to you that the processes related to sales and client work have been debugged for a long time, we recommend that you still regularly track the paths of visitors on the site. The actions of the client from the moment of his first visit to making a purchase or other targeted action that is provided by your sales funnel, the time spent on each page of the site will tell you whether everything is working as efficiently as you see it.

First, look at one of the Google Analytics reports. It shows a list of pages after viewing of which users have left the site. If the customer has left the payment page, check its performance. Leaving the basket can mean some mismatch in the stated discounts and the actual calculation. Leaving the catalog is a reason for checking if the advertising campaign has been launched for the desired target audience.

If you notice that the bounce rate is high in a definite region, most likely the problem is in the settings of advertising campaigns. Customers viewing the site from mobile devices leave if there is a problem with the display of site elements.

Regularly correct the bugs in the site engine and the gaps in the purchase funnel identified by the analytics system in order to attract more customers and increase their loyalty.

By the way, using the information from Google Analytics, you can reduce the cost of conversion by less contacts with customers. The system records the day and time of the first visit, as well as the date of purchase. Then it makes a report indicating the number of days before the target action is performed.

When you have the data, you can discuss with the marketers how to shorten this period of time and encourage the customer to buy faster.

If you use e-mail newsletters to sell main goods and additional products, pay attention to the “Campaign” column in your report. The required line will be marked as “e-mail”.

Few clicks on the site from newsletters is a clear sign that you need to either change the copywriter, or revise the entire strategy of interacting with the audience via email. Make mailing lists even more effective and encourage customers to buy more in your online store.

It is important to know the customer in person

Google Analytics reports will tell you almost everything about your target audience:

1. Where have the customers come from: from social networks, from search machines or contextual advertising? Importantly, the end-to-end analytics system will also indicate where the most interested and paying customers come from. To increase sales, it will be enough to increase the advertising budget on a certain site and reduce it or completely abandon promotion through channels that almost do not bring profit to the online store.
2. Where do the users move nest? They put the goods in the basket and pay immediately would be an ideal option, but it is not very common though. It is important to monitor the client’s path in order to understand his interest in specific categories of goods or services.
3. Who is the more frequent guest in your online store?

You can sell sports nutrition and sincerely believe that your audience is mostly men. Don’t jump to conclusions. A system of end-to-end analytics can unexpectedly show a rapid growth of the female audience. In this case, it is worth considering the option of expanding the product range – offers of protein sweets or even protein with special female supplements for the health of hair and nails.

Check the analytics data regularly, even if you are sure you are right. Consumer perception today is so flexible that it is possible to miss changes in the behavior and preferences of the target audience.

4. If you promote only in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region, pay attention to the Google Analytics report with the geography of users. The growth of visits from other regions of Russia may mean that the geographical expanding of the business that you once planned will now “shoot” as well as possible.
5. Make the user interface convenient as for viewing the catalogue and making purchases from both desktop and portable gadgets. This way you will increase sales and increase customer loyalty. After all, it is much nicer to know that your website is accessible from a mobile phone, so that the customer could quickly choose and pay the goods and enjoy the purchase at home or at work tomorrow evening.

Are the funds invested in advertising paying off?

A stable and large incoming traffic flow to the site is great. It is important that it is targeted which means that customers do not just come, but also buy.

This Google Analytics report shows the most important indicator for business i.e. the return of investments in advertising either for search engines or in social media. In our experience, 70% of customers turn to us for an end-to-end analytics solution to obtain this indicator. After all, if the investor knows which advertising channels pay him off and which ones do not this is the basis for making further strategic decisions regarding the promotion of an online store.

Total customer value

This Google Analytics report tells you how much money you earn from each customer over his interaction cycle. Actually, this time interval can be increased by using remarketing campaigns, SMS mailings, e-mail marketing as the choice of tools for this is considerable.

The main thing is that you will understand how valuable the customers who come to you from a certain advertising platform or social network are.

Revenue from the sale of a product/product line

An important indicator for online stores that collect goods in groups based on the principle of seasonality, action or design. The Google Analytics report will show which product lines are in high demand and bring big profits to the company.

A typical case is represented by one of our clients, namely the online store of orthopedic shoes SWOS. Using end-to-end analytics data the company found out which shoe lines are more popular, focused on them in contextual advertising and received a 115% increase in sales conversion.

Understand the basic indicators of marketing, learn the payback of your advertising efforts and control the profitability of sales. When your ideas are based on Google Analytics data or an end-to-end analytics system from a third-party solution you make scientifically correct and profitable decisions. Save your money and earn more.