Product merchandising in Google Analytics (part 2)
Google AnalyticsWeb AnalyticsFollowing my post on Yahoo! Web Analytics, here are some ideas for doing product merchandising analysis in Google Analytics, As a recap, online retailers want to know what products sell together; they can then use this information to create content that shows relevant cross-sell products on the most relevant pages.
In your Google Analytics UI (with e-commerce tracking enabled of course) click on Advanced Segments and create a new custom segment. Drag the Product dimension into the box and choose the product you want to analyze.
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Then save the segment and apply to your reports.
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I have to admit that I really like that once you apply a custom segment it “sticks” as you pull up various reports. You get a very specific view of the segment of data you are interested in, without getting sidetracked by all the other data. It is an elegant example of the proverbial “drilling down” in action.
Now pull up the Product Overview report in the e-commerce reporting section.
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Not only can you see what complementary products sold in conjunction with the product you are analyzing, but you can also get a sense of the value of cross-selling. One way of looking at this data is that your customers are actually telling you what products go well together. That’s pretty cool.
Lets see if they can also tell us the most relevant content. Just open up the Top Content report.
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Our visitors are therefore also telling us what pages are important in this product segment. Look at those pages and see if and where you can add some of those complementary products. Side note: you may find out that some non-product pages are listed, such as your About Us page. This just goes to show how important those “helper” pages can be.
Happy analyzing!