How to Visualize Your Ecommerce Store's Data with Google Data Studio
The world we live in is run by data. We use massive amounts of data to provide a picture of our world.
This is especially true in the case of software firms. It is an essential ingredient for understanding the performance of an enterprise. Yet, many companies struggle to make sense of the huge amount of numbers, percentages, as well as other types of data. They ask: What does the data tells us? How can we use the data to understand our company and make the right decisions that help us grow? How can we build out an action plan or create innovative products that have a positive impact on the future of our company? Which ones are working? What's not working?
The simple act of putting numbers together does not suffice. It could quickly get confusing and overwhelming, with the possibility of misinterpretations.
Because numbers only tell some of the truth So the most effective way to ensure that the data is understood by everyone involved is to gather the information from every source and adapt it to an easier-to-read medium.
It's a good thing that you don't require a large team of data scientists for making visual data possible. Because of Google Data Studio, it is now possible to create highly engaging reports that anyone are able to comprehend using Google Data Studio (GDS).
What exactly is Google Data Studio
GDS is part of the Google Analytics 360 Suite. It is Google's free data visualization as well as business intelligence (BI) software that lets you report and connect on data from hundreds of data sources. It is easy to connect a Google Data Studio dashboard to draw in Google Ads spend, YouTube traffic, and everything you've set up in Google Analytics (goals, segments and sources of traffic).
Google Data Studio can help you discover answers like:
- What happens when customers stop using their carts?
- What product pages have lower-than-average conversion rates?
- What channels of marketing perform most effectively?
The answers to these questions will help you see how small changes and investments could increase conversion rates. As an example, you could find that customers abandon their cart after they're prompted to create an account in order to pay. This may lead you to test offering a guest checkout option. In this way, you may discover that simple change dramatically improves your conversion rates and consequently, accelerates your revenue growth.
There are many instances of how GDS allows you to display the e-commerce analytics information into simple-to-understand dashboards through data visualization.
Getting Started
When you start Data Studio for the first time, you will see an overview report which gives you a tour via an interactive dashboard which guides how to navigate the interface.
I suggest starting from the bottom and then playing around with the tool. The more you play, the better the inquiries you'll begin asking. Even if you're not technical or aren't an avid user of numbers, Google Data Studio is an intuitive tool and easy to master.
Don't, however, expect to take all day to create the perfect dashboard. The dashboard you need currently provides the answers that you want today. As you continue interacting through the dashboard, you'll be making more complex inquiries that require more advanced customizations.
For dashboards that analyze information from Google, the built-in templates are a good place to start. The templates include a PPC Ecommerce Overview template and the YouTube templates for channel reports, as well as a search console template along with other. The templates are also a great way to figure out the process of creating a report and examine the connectors utilized. You can see how the templates incorporate visualizations, and then discover what the dashboard will show as the result.
Dashboards / Reports
The dashboards made with Google Data Studio are easy to understand and customizable and flexible, allowing you to select how you want to display the datachart, line graphs or bar graphs and so on. It also makes it possible to customize the dashboard with different fonts, colors, as well as adding your company's logo.
The procedure of creating an eCommerce dashboard is fairly easy, however, choosing the right metrics and layout is a much more challenging job. Although some of these options may depend on your specific type of business There are a few general measurements and layouts that can be applied to every digital business.
I suggest focusing on the most valuable metrics like:
- Checkout Funnel Metrics
- Average Order Value (AOV)
- Conversion Rate
- Revenue per User
- Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
- Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
These information points will assist you in understanding your visitors' shopping behavior. When you analyze products with high performance, you can see what's working and then apply these techniques to underperforming products to improve them.
Designing Your Layout
Making the best layout to present your data is extremely essential. Make sure that your data is presented in a manner that provides useful insights as well as provides context into your dashboards narrative. For example, the current conversion rate can be useful to be aware of, but displaying an over-time trend can prove more effective. You may also want to know what referral sources are most beneficial for you to concentrate your efforts around those channels rather than broadly targeting audiences.
The suggested Data Studio reports could include:
- The Top-Seller Product
- User Segments and Demographics according to Conversion Rate
- Changes in Revenue by Geography, Device or Gender
- Conversion Rates by Source/Medium
In addition, since dashboards are shareable, it's often sensible to design the dashboard in a professional manner and provide descriptions of each detail. Failing to provide good documentation can render the dashboard useless regardless of whether the data points appear obvious.
The Bottom Line
Google Data Studio helps make raw analytics data a lot more understandable to digital marketers. With Google Analytics and Enhanced Ecommerce data alone, you can gain a lot of insight on how your product is operating, as well as which channels for marketing and inquiries are worth investing more on.