The Etsy Seller's Guide to Hiding Your Own Visits in Google Analytics

The Etsy Seller’s Guide to Hiding Your Own Visits in Google Analytics

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A long time ago, when I worked in retail, I envied the prim, organised merchandisers whose sole responsibility (as far as I could tell from behind the counter) was to fluff around with enticing displays of gifts and stationery.

I know I’m not the only one!

Now as Etsy sellers, we get to “merchandise” our own online shops every day.

Check how our listing thumbnails look all together in the catalogue.

Pour over a new product page to make sure every detail is perfect.

Go through our shop policies with a fine tooth comb to make sure we aren’t accidentally committing ourselves to replacing unwanted items with a lifetime supply of Starbucks…

And I know—because I’ve spent my fair share of time there—that we do a lot of this “fluffing around” in our public shop front. You know – the exact same view that our buyers see.

The pages of our shop where our Google Analytics code runs. Those pages.

Oh… I think we have a little problem to fix. Keep reading

How to Measure Etsy Success like a CEO (Even after One Sale)

How to Measure Etsy Success like a CEO (Even after One Sale)

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The smell of your morning coffee still lingers in the air as your daily task list looms.

Gotta answer those customer questions…
Better update those old listings…
What about that new Instagram photo challenge?

Oh and making some beautiful things. You know – the whole reason your shop exists.

Thank goodness for that coffee!

It’s hard work running a small business, especially when your Etsy shop needs so much marketing and promotion to keep making sales. Sometimes it feels like you do more “business” than “making”.

So what I’m about to suggest might sound a little scary. We’re going to go even deeper into “business”.

The level of strategy and KPIs.

Key performance indicators? Really??!

Don’t worry, these aren’t the “awkward closed-door meetings with your boss” kind of KPI. These are the kind that focus how you measure your shop’s performance and tell you when to have a celebratory drink.

If you don’t know what success should look like, how will you know when you get there? How will you know when to crack that champagne?!

You need to figure out what your “success metrics” are, first.
Keep reading

How to Copy Google Analytics Settings in Minutes

How to Copy Google Analytics Settings in Minutes

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If you ever find yourself on a dark, empty road and see a lone car far ahead indicate to change lanes, you might think, “Why are they bothering? I bet they even checked their blind spot…”

Well that person might be me. And I did check my blind spot.

I’m just the kind of person who does things the same way, every time.

So if you’re anything like me, I can only assume that you’ve been super diligent in using your Test View to trial changes in Google Analytics.

But what about when you’re confident everything’s working? Everything took so long to set up the first time… surely you don’t need to go through it all again?!

Nope, you don’t!

(Ok, there are a couple of tiny things you’ll need to do again, but bear with me because there’s still an easy way to do it.)
Keep reading

The Secret of Professional Analysts is Segmentation (and it's easy!)

The Secret of Professional Analysts is Segmentation (and it’s easy!)

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I think I’m lucky. I get to talk to people about digital analytics almost every day. (Hey, it’s fun for me, ok?)

But over the years I’ve noticed something a bit silly.

Everyone’s always talking about how to measure more stuff and see more reports.

They need to capture every movement of every visitor.
They want to dip their fingers into a swirling ocean of numbers.
They’re desperate for a veritable avalanche of interactive charts straight off the set of Minority Report.

And it’s all a complete waste of time if you don’t know how to take the next step.

The most important work you will do in Analytics isn’t setting up traffic attribution or installing dashboards. It’s actually analysing your data.

And wow, can that be a daunting prospect! Where on earth do you start? What should you look at first? How do you know when something is important and what can you even do about it??

Luckily, there’s a simple place to start and it’s called segmentation. It’s the bread and butter of analysis, is super easy to learn and will make finding those important insights so much easier. Keep reading

Create useful & understandable Listings reports

Create useful & understandable Listings reports by importing your own data (it’s easy!)

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Have you ever asked the question, “What type of listings do my visitors spend longer on?”

It’s a great question! If I sold children’s toys and toy patterns, I’d want to know what general type of products are more popular with visitors, regardless of what actually sells more.

But if you’ve spent much time in the Behavior reports in Google Analytics (which is where you’ll find all your listings), you’ll know that you can’t just group them by their Section. That info just isn’t in there at all!

You know what I’m going to say… we can totally fix that!

listing-performance-reporting_bad-vs-good

You can take your Listings reports to the next level by putting in whatever information you want about every listing. So keep reading to find out how…

Keep reading

The magic of UTM Campaign tags & how to master that pixie dust!

The magic of UTM Campaign tags & how to master that pixie dust!

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If you’ve hung around here for a while, you’ll have heard a little about UTM Campaign Tags. They are the magic ingredient for making sure that visits from Instagram, Pinterest and anywhere else show up in your Google Analytics reports correctly.

Why doesn’t this happen right in the first place??

To know where a visitor came from, Google Analytics has to listen in to the conversation happening between the visitor’s browser and your website. Often this conversation includes information about the last page the visitor looked at (their traffic source).

This is called “referral” information.

But sometimes, for a whole bunch of technical reasons, it doesn’t have this information or it’s wrong. In many of these cases, the visit will be attributed as “direct” traffic – the catch-all black hole bucket of mysterious visits! – and you’ll never know if your marketing actually worked.

Campaign tags let us control all the information about the source of the visit and leave nothing to chance.

See? Magic!

Keep reading to find out how and where to use campaign tags for marketing your Etsy shop (or any website!) Keep reading

How to measure visitors from Pinterest to your Etsy listings

How to measure visitors from Pinterest to your Etsy listings

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Pinterest is a wonderful and fun tool for collecting inspiration and aspiration… so it only makes sense that it’s also a fantastic marketing channel for your Etsy stores! But how much traffic does it generate?

Find out how to measure your Pinterest visitors more reliably and control how they appear in your Google Analytics reports. Keep reading

Find your Etsy buyers in Google Analytics

Find your Etsy buyers in Google Analytics

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Are you despairing that you got all excited about Google Analytics but now you’ve realised that you can’t even see your sales in it?!

It’s crazy and crazy annoying! Luckily, all is not lost.

There’s one important step that you can do right now to start analysing your sales. This technique lets you pinpoint individual buyers to discover the path they took through your shop, even across multiple visits, and how they got to you.

So let’s explore! Keep reading

Four Google Analytics dashboards just for Etsy shop owners

Four Google Analytics dashboards just for Etsy shop owners

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Dashboards are like snapshots of your shop’s performance. They let you get a quick, birds eye view of how things are going and what might need a deeper look.

Google Analytics lets you create dashboards that show you all sorts of things, but it’s tricky to know how to put them together if you haven’t learnt all the important metrics and dimensions yet. It’s also really important to think about what you want to see on a day-to-day basis before you start building one, to make sure your dashboard is genuinely useful.

So I’ve put together four Google Analytics dashboards that are tailored JUST for Etsy shops. Keep reading to find out what they show and how to install them in just a few clicks! Keep reading