25 Tips That Will Make Your Eshop Grow Like Crazy

E-shops often repeat the same mistakes over and over again, losing sales in the process. Maybe you’re making some of them too?

I've taken the liberty of writing the most frequently repeated mistakes down. What I ended up with is a list of 25 practical tips for skyrocketing your e-shop's growth. Most of these tips are easy to apply in practice, even on your own. And they’re guaranteed to make a real difference in sales.

If you run into any trouble, feel free to contact me.

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I've divided my tips into 3 sections. In thefirst one, we’re going to take a closer look at Google Analytics,while the second one is devoted to Google Ads and the final containstips of a more general nature.

8 Tips for Google Analytics

TIP #1. Track searches through your store

Sledujte, co zákazníci hledají přímo na vašem e-shopu. Získáte tak tipy na zboží, o které je zájem.

Např. pokud máte na e-shopu spoustu vyhledávání na „fotbalový míč“, ale neprodáváte ho, zvažte jeho naskladnění. Tedy pokud se hodí k vašemu sortimentu.

Track what customers are searching for directly through your online store. You'll get a better idea about what items they're interested in.

For example, if you see there’s a lot of searches for "soccer ball" in your search bar but your company isn’t selling those, consider adding it to stock. If it fits your product range, that is.

Where to find searches on your e-shop?

1. Google Analytics
2. Admin
3. View Settings
4. Site Search Settings
5. Query parameter -> "q"

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Shopify uses a "q" parameter. Use the “string” parameter instead of the “q” parameter if you use Shoptet.

Search queries for Eshop can be found here:

1. Google Analytics
2. Behavior
3. Site searches

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TIP #2. Activate enhanced e-commerce

Data related to purchases is extremely important, since sales are the main purpose of an e-shop. By activating enhanced e-commerce, you get new ways to filter shopper behavior and products sold. You will see:

• visitors who viewed the product
• visitors who added the product to the cart
• visitors who left their cart
• groups of products organized by site category
• ratio of adding to cart and displaying details (aka the adding to cart rate)
• ratio of purchases to detail views
  

How to enable E-commerce?

1. Google Analytics
2. Admin
3. Ecommerce Settings
4. Enable Ecommerce

If you’re using aready-made solution for your e-shop, all you need to do is to enable this in Google Analytics. Otherwise, you will have to add the conversion code. For gtag.js there is an English guide here.

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TIP #3. Merge Heureka into one line

Do you see Heureka and its subdomains on several lines in your traffic feeds? I recommend adding a filter to merge them into one.Vidíte ve zdrojích návštěvnosti Heureku a její subdomény na několika řádcích? Doporučuji přidat filtr, který je sjednotí v jeden.

How to add a filter?

1. Google Analytics
2. Admin
3. Filters
4. +ADD FILTER

Follow the settings on screen below:

Insert  ^.+\.heureka\.cz$ into the campaign source ("Campaign Source")

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TIP #4. Collect data for remarketing

Even if you’ve already deployed Google Ads remarketing code on your e-shop, it’s still good to activate this option and create your audiences using Google Analytics. It will give you more precise targeting options.

Where to activate data collection?

1. Google Analytics
2. Admin
3. Tracking Info
4. Data Collection
5. Enable

TIP #5. Import costs into Google Analytics

Using scripts, you can automatically import costs from Facebook, Sklik, Heureka, Zboží, Favi, Glami, Biano and others into Google Analytics. It’s a bit more difficult to set up, though. The script for Sklik and Facebook is free but the other scripts are paid. Both the scripts and additional instructions can be found here.

TIP #6. Create ROAS metric in Google Analytics

With this, you’ll be able to see how your channels are doing straight away, without having to open the advertising system and wait for a report.

How to set up the calculated metric?

1. Google Analytics
2. Admin
3. Calculated Metrics

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To show the ROAS metric, create “Custom Report” (see my next tip).

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TIP #7. Create Custom Report

Once you’ve created your own PNO metrics and imported the costs into Google Analytics, you need to set up a Custom Report. Here, you’re free to choose your settings based on your own goals and preferences. What you’ll get in the end is a single table containing all your channels as well as the most important metrics. Mine looks like this:

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Where to set up Custom report

1. Google Analytics
2. Customization
3. Custom Reports
4. + New Custom report

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TIP #8. Exclude parameters fbclid and gci

Facebook and Glami use their own measurement parameters. This causes 1 url = 1 product in Google Analytics (Behavior -> Site Content) to be split into multiple rows (see the below screen for a better idea). This makes your data all scattered, so it’s much harder to make sense of it.

Where to exclude parameters?

1. Google Analytics
2. Admin
3. Data selection settings
4. Exclude URL Query Parameters

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Note: Saving your new setting will not overwrite the old, wrongly marked data.

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9 Tips for Google Ads

TIP #9. Activate free Google Shopping

Google has now expanded its shopping search results to include non-paid results in Google Shopping. They’re basically like Google Shopping’s very own organic search. For you, that’s a chance to showcase your products to potential customers without paying a single dime.

So how to activate it?

1. Google Merchant Center
2. Growth
3. Manage programs
4. Advertise your products for free on Google platforms
5. Activate

According to Google's support, you will only be able to check whether you are showing up in the search by this autumn, after you have collected enough data. Once you do, though, a new chart called Performance (unpaid) will pop up in Merchant Center -> Overview.

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TIP #10. Measure your conversion value in Google Ads

Without a conversion code, you're advertising at random. You have no way to tell which products generate your revenues and which are just a drain on your budget. That's what makes conversion value measurements such a key thing.

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If you're using a ready-made web solution, there are tutorials you can find in the help section or on your provider’s blog that’ll help you set these measurements up. Most of the time, it will be no big deal.

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If you have a custom-made e-shop, on the other hand, you should probably get in touch with your webmaster first and hold off your advertising for the time being.

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For those of you who already measure conversions in Google Analytics, there is nothing easier than to link them to Google Ads and import the conversion code there. And if you need any help with that, get in touch.

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TIP #11. Activate auto-tagging

How does Google Analytics find out that a particular conversion originated from a specific campaign, report, keyword or ad? By adding UTM parameters to the URL.You don't need to know what an UTM parameter is, but make sure you have that option checked. Otherwise, it will be virtually impossible to measure campaign performance.

How to activate Automatic tagging in Google Ads?

1. Google Ads
2. Settings
3. Account Settings
4. Auto-tagging‍
   

TIP #12. Connect Google Ads to Google Analytics and import your metrics

By linking the two systems, you can add interesting metrics to both. In Google Analytics you will see, for example, campaigns and search queries. Google Ads, on the other hand, will get extra info on:

• Avg. session duration
• Bounce rate
• % of new visits

How to connect them?

1. Google Ads
2. Tools and settings
3. Linked accounts‍
4. Google Analytics
5. Import site metrics

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TIP #13. Check for negative keywords

The last admin may have accidentally excluded items that you now have in store. Or you might have stocked up on new products, but they won't show in any relevant search because of the negative keywords.‍

Imagine, for example, that you’re managing campaigns for an e-shop selling running shoes. You check your search queries and see that your ads are also showing up under "home shoes". Here, I would recommend setting the term "home" as a negative keyword. After some time, however, you decide to stock up new shoes and add some home shoes as well. And just like that, you’ve got a problem on your hands, because your listing doesn't show up on the search query "home".

Where can you check negative keywords?

1. Google Ads
2. Choose campaign
3. Keywords
4. Negative keywords

TIP #14. Check your automated rules

If you had a freelancer, agency, or employee manage your PPC campaigns in the past and this person doesn’t work for you anymore, it might be a good idea to check if they've set up automated rules.

You made a change, only for the rule to revert it to the original value without you knowing.

Checking your rules only takes a couple of seconds, but it saves you a great deal of trouble.

Where can you find automated rules?

1. Google Ads
2. Tools and settings
3. Rules

TIP #15. Exclude mobile apps

Content ads often get displayed in mobile apps. Those do not show the desired effect, however. Therefore, it is common practice to exclude them.

How to exclude mobile apps?

1. Google Ads
2. Placements
3. Exclusions
4. Exclude placements
5. Enter multiple placements
6. Insert "mobileappcategory::69500"
7. Add 1 placement
8. Save‍

TIP #16. Add a ROAS metric into Google Ads

If you're optimizing Google Ads yourself, save yourself some extra work by adding ROAS metrics.

How to add a ROAS metric?

1. Google Ads
2. Columns
3. Edit columns
4. Custom columns
5. + Own column
6. Fill everything in according to screenshot
   

TIP #17. Send your Smart Shopping Campaign the right parameters

This type of campaign uses neural networks and machine learning. But if you "teach" it bad data (parameters), it probably won’t work quite as well as it should.

So make sure you feed your Smart Shopping campaign the right parameters, including dynamic remarketing. You can always check them via the Google Chrome Tag Assistant extension.

How to make sure you’re sending the correct parameters?

1. Your e-shop
2. Activate Google Tag Assistant
3. Refresh your e-shop
4. Google Tag Assistant
5. Google Ads remarketing Tag
6. Request‍

Then click through the eshop and see if the parameters:

• event,
• ecomm_prodid,
• ecomm_totalvalue,
• ecomm_pagetype,

change the variables in the right-hand side and match the data you're actually looking at.

If you use a ready-made solution (like Shopify), you’re free to ignore this tip. Just check your admin section to make sure you’re have the remarketing code inserted correctly.

7  General Tips

TIP #18. Showcase customer reviews and build trust

According to Invesp 90% of customers prefer to read online reviews before visiting a store or using a service. 88% of customers say that they trust online reviews as much as they would personal recommendations.

Customer testimonials and reviews often leave a bigger impact than even the best descriptions. So make sure to actively collect and share them.

TIP #19. Display your TOP products on your homepage

Top sellers with the highest margins, but also products that you want to get rid of to free up your warehouse. These are the items you should display on the most visible place of your eshop.

TIP #20. Check page loading speed

When your customers have to wait for your eshop to load, after a while, they usually run out of patience. Then, they leave without buying anything.

Source: www.section.io

Take this test and see where you or your webmaster have room for improvement.  

TIP #21. Visit FB groups and websites regularly, to get inspiration

E-commerce is a highly competitive field. Therefore, it’s a good idea to keep track of what’s going on in Facebook groups related to your e-commerce solutions.

• Shopify Experts & Newbies
• Prestashop Support
• WooCommerce Community

What’s even more important, though, is to monitor the largest e-shops. They have the resources and data needed to test what works, and what doesn't.

• What does their homepage look like?
• What does product detail look like?
• What about the shopping cart?

Feel free to draw your inspiration from them, but avoid copying them outright. They may have different goals and a different target audience than you.

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TIP #22. Facebook Tagging for Google Analytics

If you insert tags in advance, you’ll be able to see which Facebook campaigns and sets have brought in users, when evaluating your ads.

How to add Facebook tags?

1. Facebook Business Manager
2. Campaign
3. Ads
4. Edit
5. URL parameters‍
6. Insert:
   utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign={{campaign.name}}&utm_content={{adset.name}}

TIP #23. Check if your advertising systems have correctly inserted logos

Size matters as well. Will your logo fill up its allocated space, as intended?

Where to check logos in Google Merchant Center?

1. Google Merchant Center
2. ‍Settings
3. ‍Business information
4. Branding

Where to check logos in Heureka?

1. Heureka
2. ‍Settings
3. ‍Info about e-shop
4. ‍Logo of e-shop

TIP #24.Use measurement codes, even if you don't advertise yet

Machine learning and neural networks are increasing in importance with each passing day. Google and Facebook's advertising systems already use them, too. And for these technologies to work as intended, they need the right data, and in large quantities at that.

That’s why I would recommend inserting measurement codes even into systems that you aren’t using yet, as long as you plan to start using them in the future.

Codes you shouldn’t leave out:

• Google Analytics + enhanced e-commerce
• Google Ads Remarketing code
• Google Ads Conversion tracking
• Facebook pixel

TIP #25. Advertise for free on Glami

Glami has a free mode that allows you to advertise without having to top up your credit. It won’t give you miraculous results, but it is a good way to check if your fashion items are in demand at all. And if you turn out to be in luck, I’d recommend that you give their paid mode a try as well.

Conclusion

E-commerce grew by 15% in 2019, and this year, the growing tendency is even more prominent. Even so, „e-commerce still only makes up 13% of overall sales“ (APEK).

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With these 25 tips, it can be your shop that brings those sales home.

Should you have any questions, don't hesistate to contact me. I'll be happy to help you out.