Conversion rate optimization is one of every Shopify merchants’ main concerns. Google analytics provide us with a powerful tool to keep track, measure and optimize conversion rate.

Before continuing with Shopify conversion tracking, I recommend you have Google Analytics installed in your Shopify store.

Numbers display in Google analytics tell you a lot about what you should do to make your Shopify store’s Conversion Rate go up. Focus on Shopify conversion tracking is an essential, but painful process. Each market and website has different methods to increase sales. In this post, I will not mention ways to improve conversion rates, but must-check metrics when your Shopify conversion rate dramatically drops.

Shopify conversion tracking: important but painful process

Analytics conversion rate is important because it determines the success of a Shopify store, a marketing campaign or an A/B testing variant. Higher conversion rates also lead to higher ROI for your eCommerce store. Have a look at the conversion rate formula:

About cost optimization, we have one metric:

This means, for the same Marketing cost, when conversion rate goes up, cost per action goes down on. We sell more at the same cost, so that improves ROI for your Shopify store 

However, analyzing the conversion rate is a painful process.

1. A higher conversion rate doesn’t always mean higher performance. 

It is ridiculous when you sort the conversion rate column and see that a lot of Marketing sources have 100% conversion rate because they have only 1 visitor and 1 conversion. This situation makes it easy to be mislead.

2. Making your Shopify store more engaging can reduce the conversion rate 

Let's say you have a pure eCommerce site, with absolutely no content other than products. Your average customer comes to the site once a month and buys once every two months. To try and improve this, you add a blog to the site with really engaging content.

Suddenly, your average customer is visiting the site twice a week. To maintain your conversion rate, you'd have to persuade your long, loyal customers to buy once per week, instead of once every two months. In other words, your site has most definitely improved, but it's very likely your headline conversion rate will go down.

3. Conversion rates vary widely on visitor types

New visitors may generate less conversion than returning visitors. A first-time visitor to your site who has never bought from you before, is far, far less likely to purchase than an old, loyal customer.

Visitors from different traffic sources/referrers will also differ wildly. Direct visitors will tend to convert more highly still since they tend to contain more existing customers. Likewise, brand and non-brand search terms, generic vs long tail terms will vary too.

As said, there are too many elements that affect the conversion rate and mislead our Shopify conversion tracking. In this post, I will not mention ways to improve conversion rate, but must-check metrics when your Shopify conversion rate dramatically drops.

4 Google Analytics metrics you should check when your Shopify conversion rate drops

If your eCommerce store’s conversion rate drops, don’t panic. Before trying to find a way to increase the conversion rate of your site, try to look deeper into these following metrics.

1. Evaluate your eCommerce audience

In Google Analytics, from the left side panel, click Audience. From here, inspect Demographic > Geo/Location > Interest to see if you are targeting the right audience you have defined before.

After that, go to Behavior and inspect types of visitors (New or Returning).

Your existing customers are swayed by brand, service, product quality, delivery, etc. Your new visitors are far more swayed by perception. If the number of returning visitor is getting lower and lower, try to think about the reason why people do not return to your website.

Is your content interesting enough to pull them back? Should you increase marketing budget to retarget old visitors?

2. Break your Shopify conversion rate by landing page and channel, traffic source/medium

From the left side panel, click Acquisition tab, then click Channels. You will see your Shopify conversion rate for each channel. Instead of looking at the overall conversion rate, try analyzing conversion rate of individual channels and answer the question: In channel, do you have the highest and the lowest conversion rate? In which channel does conversion rate drop? And Why?

From Acquisition, click All channels, then click Source/Medium. You can see what source of traffic has the highest conversion and which one has the lowest. In the secondary dimension search box, search “landing page”.

Here you have a report about the conversion rate of each landing page.

Try answering the question “What landing page pulls the overall conversion rate down? And why?” Then fix the traffic source or landing pages that are performing badly.

3. Check time on site and bounce rate

As Google explains, time on site is the average amount of time that users spend on your site, whereas bounce rate is the number of users dropping out from your site when reaching the first landing page, in comparison to a total number of users.

Time on site and bounce rate are two of the most important metrics in Shopify conversion tracking. You cannot expect users to buy from your Shopify store if they remain on your site for like 2 seconds and left intermediately without seeing around on your site for more product information.

When bounce rate is high and time on site are too low, try optimizing your page loading speed.

Online shoppers are impatient creatures. They will not likely to wait for your site to finish loading within 10 seconds. Hubspot has carried out research about the relationship between load time and conversion rate.

The research also shows the relationship between loading time and bounce rate. As a result, low site loading speed results in high bounce rate and low conversion rate.

Ad relevance is a factor that affects time on site and bounce rate. Online users, when clicking on your ads, expect to see what is being shown on the ads. Try to create advertisements that are relevant to your landing page’s content.

Besides this, try to create internal linking on your landing page, to link to other pages within your site. It is not only good for your Shopify store SEO but also keeps users on your site longer.

Finally, it is important to optimize the mobile version of your Shopify store. Nowadays, people are using mobile more and more when shopping online, tons of Shopify traffic comes from mobile devices so that mobile performance has a huge effect on your conversion rate.

According to Shopify, the mobile-first design helps Shopify stores convert more. To see if your Shopify store performs well on mobile or not, search Device Category in Secondary dimension, then click Advance search, and type in “mobile”.

In this way, you can find out which landing page is performing better or worse on mobile and which one should be fixed.

4. Check User Flow report

According to Google definition, User Flow report presents paths users took through your site, from the source or landing page or other dimensions, through the various pages, and where along their paths they exited your site.

The Users Flow report lets you compare volumes of traffic from different sources, examine traffic patterns through your site, and troubleshoot the efficacy of your site.

From this dashboard, search landing page to see which pages they go through and from which pages they drop. Grey lines present the flow of traffic, the red parts present where and how many users drop from each page.

By looking at this graph, you may find out which source or landing page is generating the most traffic and which one has the highest bounce rate. Try to fix the source and landing page that have the most traffic but high bounce rate.

Conclusion

A huge result is made up of many small ingredients. So, when your Shopify conversion rate suddenly drops, don’t panic. Instead of wandering around the Internet asking for help, keep calm and break the conversion rate into smaller dimension. You will find the best solution for your Shopify store.

Find out more information about Shopify Conversion Tracking. Do you want to share any experience about conversion tracking, chat with us or leave a comment!