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

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By default, Google Analytics lets you see only two bits of information about a listing: its URL and Page Title.

(The Page Title is what shows up at the top of your browser window – eg. Geometric Crochet Ring Ecru casual ring by LittleBoneCollector).

There are a bunch of problems with this:

1. All the different ways a visitor can access your listing from within Etsy (eg. search, their home page etc.) records a different URL in GA. (We’ve already solved that one.)
2. Your Page Titles may be long and have extra keywords that make your product names not so readable in your reports. (Plus there’s the “by YourShopName” bit at the end – we don’t need that!)
3. If you’ve allowed it, both URLs and Page Titles will be translated for visitors who speak other languages, resulting in a whole different set for each language.
4. If you experiment with different titles in Etsy, every change will create a new Page Title and a new URL for the same listing.
5. Other information about your listings, like their Section, doesn’t exist and can’t be added automatically.

How do we make analysing our listings easier??

Upload new listing data directly into Google Analytics!

What if we could just tell Google Analytics a simple name for every product and what Section it belonged to? Well, you can and here’s how!

First, you need a spreadsheet

Yep, a spreadsheet. Sorry! Don’t worry, I’ve made a template for you. It’s in Google Sheets, which you can open using the same login you use for Google Analytics.

Getting started

ONE – Think about what new information you’d like to include for your listings. I suggest a “simple name” and the Section, but you might also want others. Potential revenue? Person who’d make the item? Made-to-order vs ready made?

TWO – In Google Analytics (under your Etsy shop’s Property), create a Custom Dimension for every type of new information you’ll be importing.

Read Google’s instructions on creating a Custom Dimension.

• Start all your dimensions with “Listing” so they’re easy to find later. eg. “Listing Simple Name” and “Listing Section“.
• All your dimensions will use a Scope of “HIT”.

THREE – Under Data Import, create a new data set of the type “Content Data”.

Read Google’s instructions for an example Content Data import.

• Type = Content Data
• Name = Listing Information (or another name of your choice)
• Views = Your main and test views.

For defining your “Data Set Schema”, use these settings:

1. Key = Page
2. Refine with regular expression =

   .*/listing/([0-9]+)/.*

3. Imported data =
   Listing Section
   Listing Simple Name
   + any other dimensions you created
4. Overwrite hit data = Yes

Save it!

FOUR – Get the column headers for your data set and update Row 1 of the Working sheet of the spreadsheet.

FIVE – Still in the spreadsheet, go to Add-ons > Get Add-ons and install the free add-on “OWOX BI Data Upload”. (Just search for it and it’ll come up to install.)

Set up is complete! Time for your first import.

Your first import

Your first import is the big one. You need to add in the extra information about aaaaall your current listings, so for some of you, this will be a big job! But once it’s done, you don’t need to do a big import again (unless you release a bunch of new listings at once).

1. In Etsy, open the Listings Manager. (Change it to the list view, rather than the gallery view – it’s easier.)
2. For each listing:

1. On the title of the listing, Right-click > Copy link address / Copy link destination
2. Back in the spreadsheet, paste this into column H. (It should look like the example I already have in there and the listing ID in column A should populate automatically!)
3. Complete the other columns for that listing. (Be consistent with spelling and capitalisation!)
4. Repeat for all listings.

Yes, it’s a little tiny bit tedious and no, you can’t get the listing ID by exporting your items out of Etsy. I’m sorry. If you discover a faster way to do this, please let me know! Maybe some inventory management programs will give you the Etsy IDs.

(Wait a few hours before testing your import with my custom report at the end of this article, to make sure the imported data has been applied to new visits to your listings.)

Upload data for your new listings

Every time you publish a new listing (with a new listing ID), you need to import the extra details about it.

1. Remove all the data in your Working sheet, except Row 1 and Column A. (You have a copy in Your First Import in case you need it as a reference, later.)
2. Follow the basic steps from your first import to populate the sheet with the data for your new listing(s).
3. Create a new sheet in this document and name it “IMPORT {today’s date}“
4. Copy & paste the data you need to import into this new sheet, following the steps from your first import.
5. Use the OWOX BI Data Upload add-on to import it into Google Analytics.

TIP: If you’re feeling confident, try creating a “Quick Import” sheet that you update manually instead of doing all this copying & pasting. That will be faster for importing just one or two listings at a time.

Reporting on your listings

Remember that great, simple-looking report at the start? Well now you can have that!

TIP: If you’ve already created any Custom Dimensions before following this tutorial, this report will not work! You’ll get an error. In this case, you’ll need to create the report from scratch. You can see what Dimensions and Metrics to use from the screenshots above.