How to Setup Mobile Commerce Tracking: Google Analytics

With mobile users growing at break neck speed and with 3G and 4G networks….and it may be 8G between me writing this and posting it the next day :) - the next question store owners would (and should have) is how is my mobile traffic interacting with my site and what is the value of this traffic.

There are many ways to look at value and each business will have a different way of measuring this. This post is more of a ‘How To’ in Google Analytics and not about insights and analytics itself. And although the latter is more important than the tool itself….the first step is to know where the data is.

Google offers Advanced Segments to allow you to segment your data by many criteria (dimensions and metrics in GA).

To setup a segment for your mobile traffic:

  • Login to your Google Analytics account and from your dashboard screen select Advanced Segments:

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  • Click on Create a New Segment to the far right.

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  • Under Systems find ‘Operating System’ and drag and drop it in the Dimension box to the right, select the condition ‘contains’ and select a mobile platform value from the dropdown:

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  • Continue to add additional conditions as Or statements.
  • Once you have all the available mobile platforms available added, name the segment and save.

This segment will now be available on all the reports (top right corner) where relevant.

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To apply the segment to a report simply select it and click apply. This is what a sample dashboard report would look like with the custom segment applied:

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And, an ecommerce report would look like this:

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There are many more reports you can apply this segment to and analyze how mobile users are interacting with your site. Dig around in GA and you’ll find some very useful information.

A word of caution and advice: It’s very easy to get lost in your reports and all the data. Don’t let the data and reports drive the direction of your analysis. Start with a business goal and then work through the data to find your answers and insights.

True value: You may have visitors browsing and researching on their mobile devices and finally making a purchase on their desktops/laptops – while the sale didn’t happen on the mobile device the sales process did start there and contributed to the sale. It has value and should be measured. Do your best to track it.

Maybe offer a coupon code on your mobile theme and track how it gets used. If you see sales with coupon codes offered on your mobile site but the sale doesn’t appear in your mobile sales reports, you can at least attribute some value of that sale to the mobile site since it was part of the sales process.

You could use coupons as your tracking method for your facebook page/shop as well. If you have other ideas, please share them in the comments. I’d love to hear your creative ideas and I’m sure the community would appreciate it as well.

To learn more about AmeriCommerce’s facebook integration, one of the best in the industry, even if I say so myself :) and user friendly mobile commerce sites visit the product blog: Facebook shop and Mobile Shopping features enhanced.

Credits: Although this post is more about a tool that shows you how to setup a segment for your mobile tracking in Google Analytics versus true analytics itself, I would like to give credit to Avinash Kaushik for his contribution to the field of Analytics and my knowledge (since then, many more have contributed to my learning but the list is too long to mention). My learning started from Avinash’s blog and books and I appreciate him for the work he does and the inspiration he has been to many.

If you truly want to learn analytics (not just how to use tools) and to understand your customers and your online business, please read Avinash’s blog at: http://www.kaushik.net/avinash. He has also published two terrific books. If you run an online business, I don’t just strongly recommend but I insist you read every post on his blog and both his books. You owe it to yourself. Although not the only component of online success, it is a very important one.

photo credit: SalFalko via photopin cc