Google™ Analytics 2.0

Chapter 23. E-Commerce

Commerce is defined as the buying and selling of goods. On a macroeconomic level, commerce could represent all of the sales within a city, state, or region, but we’re not concerned with macroeconomics. Rather, we’re concerned with microeconomics — the buying and selling of goods on a specific web site: your web site.

Even more specifically, you’re probably concerned with how much you’re selling from your web site. It’s not enough just to know what you’re selling, though. You also need to know how those sales happen because when you know, you can duplicate the process.

Google Analytics provides reports that help you understand the circumstances under which your products are sold. For example, do you sell more products on Monday than on any other day of the week? You can know for sure using the reports in this section.

Enabling E-Commerce Tracking

When you open Google Analytics, you may find that you don’t have any e-commerce reports. Don’t panic! You’re not being denied anything. You just need to enable e-commerce tracking for your account. Follow these steps to do that:

1. Log into Google Analytics. You’re taken to the Analytics Settings page.

2. From the list of Website Profiles, find the web site for which you would like to enable e-commerce and then click the edit link. You are taken to the Profile Settings page.

3. The first box on the Profile Settings pages is the Main Website Profile. Click Edit in the upper-right corner of this box to be taken to the Edit Profile Information ...