Google Analytics

With Google Analytics, you can optimize your sales funnels and improve performance across your sites, apps, and offline marketing. Google's analytics solutions can help you turn customer insights into action for your business. This guide provides an overview of the integration, instructions for setting up the integration, and support resources. 

Before you start

• Google Analytics tracks data on initial checkout orders and checkout pages, but it does not track data on recurring orders. For more robust Google Analytics reporting, we recommend using Littledata - Google Analytics for Recharge. Littledata has an automated Google Analytics audit and set-up for sites using Recharge, including phone support and reporting.
• Enabling GTM automatically disables Google Analytics Tracking, refer to enabling Google Tag Manager with Recharge.
• By default, Google leads you to create a Google Analytics 4 property, however that version is not yet compatible with Shopify or Recharge at this point. When creating a property, make sure to select both a Google Analytics 4 property and a Universal Analytics property. This should help with the mandatory transition to GA4 that Google will implement by July 2023.  

Setup the Google Analytics integration 

Step 1 - Setup your Google Analytics account

1. Create your Google Analytics account. All new users who set up Google Analytics for the first time will default to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) IDs, however, this version is not yet compatible with Shopify or Recharge. You need to set up Universal Analytics to use Google Analytics with Shopify and Recharge. 
2. Use Google's guide to set up Universal Analytics and choose Only a Universal Analytics property in step 6. You can opt to support both Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4 via Google Tag Manager, but this is not compatible with the current Google Analytics Integration. Take precautions if you choose this option.
3. Select the Universal Analytics property and retrieve the UA-ID from Property settings.

   

Step 2 - Connect Google Analytics to Recharge

1. From the Recharge merchant portal, click Apps and select Marketplace.
2. Locate Google Analytics and click Get.
3. Select Universal as the Google Analytics type.

   

4. Enter the UA-ID in the Google Analytics ID field.
5. Click Save.

   

Step 3 - Connect Google Analytics to Shopify

1. From the Shopify admin, click Online Store and select Preferences.
2. Scroll down to Google Analytics and paste your UA-ID.

   

3. Check the box to enable Use Enhanced Ecommerce.
4. Click Save.

Using Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4

If you want to use both Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4, this can be done with tag managers via Google Tag Manager. Google Tag Manager is a pro gated feature. If you are interested in this feature, reach out to the Recharge Support team.

You may want to use both to leverage the new Google Analytics 4 tracking properties but still keep your Universal Analytics data history. 

Set up a goal funnel in Google Analytics

You need to create goal funnels to start tracking data. After setup, you should run a test transaction to trigger the goal. Data typically shows up in the next 24 hours.

When the customer goes from /cart to /r/checkout, they switch from your ecommerce domain to the Recharge domain.

Marketing attribution

To see which marketing campaigns result in paid subscriptions, Google Analytics must track both the first page of the user journey, which has the campaign UTM parameters, and the last page with the payment information. This process is easily disrupted. If you experience any errors, see Troubleshooting.

It is possible to see channels and campaigns for most of your payments with Google Analytics. However, for full attribution including repeat subscriptions, you will need to use Littledata - Google Analytics for Recharge.

Troubleshooting

If you are having trouble seeing the user journey in Google Analytics, check the following:

• Has the Google Analytics property ID been added in Recharge's Apps section, and is it set to the correct Universal type?
• Can you see traffic to the checkout pages and not the ecommerce conversion tracking? Or is it not showing any traffic at all?
• Is the ecommerce information missing for all orders or only some of the orders?

Common Enhanced Ecommerce Issues

Below are a few common issues merchants experience with Enhanced Ecommerce. 

Support

• For assistance with setting up and using Google Analytics, see Google's Help Center. 
• See the Littledata - Google Analytics for further support or help with custom reporting.
• You may also want to review the Elevar integration, which has experience handling more complex ecommerce tracking.