Approaches to Shopping Behavior Tracking in e-Commerce

In this blog post, you will hear about the main points to keep in mind for successfully tracking your customers shopping behaviour on your e-commerce website or app.

Measurement Comes First

Did you know that your digital marketing strategy needs to be aligned with your measurement plan for digital analytics? Digital Marketers often tend to forget the crucial steps in tracking user behaviour. Right at this point,  we need to involve technical marketers in our conversations to define and understand our approach for digital marketing. 

We are living in a fast changing environment. Our day to day campaigns are launched quickly, but they would need more preparation and planning than you might think.

Technical marketers have the ability to work cross functional with digital marketers, business strategists and IT developers. They are critically involved in shaping your company’s measurement strategy. 

Before setting up a marketing campaign, lets focus on the following questions:

• What are the main goals of my campaign and which KPI’s do I want to measure?

• What is the first touchpoint of your campaign with your prospective customers or existing?

• Which steps need your visitors to pass in order to proceed and complete a conversion?

• Which types of data do you need to measure in each step of the customer journey from the first touchpoint to the final conversion?

Full Funnel Tracking

Reviewing your measurement plan enables you to take initiatives for building the best analytics tracking.

Regarding users shopping behaviour analysis both Google Analytics as well as Adobe Analytics have integrations and setups to complete.

GA4 Enhanced e-Commerce Tracking has defined  standardised event names and parameters developers need to implement in each step of the shopping behaviour. Those event names within dataLayers can be found clearly on Google Developer Sites.

Once these events are implemented and all relevant item parameters are populated, Google Analytics enables its full usage for Digital Marketers with special reports like, Ecommerce purchases, Purchase Journey, Checkout Journey.

Adobe Analytics also provides guidelines for Commerce Implementation.

All reports can be built then in Adobe Analysis Workspace, based on the events used in the implementation.

Critical Steps to consider in Product Performance

Depending on the quality of your dataLayer, meaning the efficient implementation of enhanced e-commerce events with relevant item parameters, you will be able to review the full outcome of marketing campaigns on product level. 

If you want to know, how well your specific products have performed within a special campaign period or over their lifetime on the market, you need to have standardised product information across all your shopping behaviour steps.

In this case product name or SKU can be used as an identifier to analyse the entire shopping behaviour process. Additionally product categories can be used for hierarchical reporting of product lines. Product list names are also crucial to analyse the performance with CTR’s to your product detail pages.

As final words on Shopping Behaviour Tracking, digital businesses can find out the true and efficient value of their digital marketing activities. It is critical not to underestimate the efficient planning and implementation phases of digital analytics on your website and app. Thus it is crucial to work with technical marketers as consultant stakeholders between marketing and IT teams.

To conclude, understanding customer shopping behavior is not just about collecting data—it’s about harnessing that data to drive actionable insights. From click paths to product interactions, the right approach to shopping behavior tracking empowers e-commerce businesses to refine user experiences, increase conversions, and build customer loyalty.

At risewise.digital, we specialize in transforming data into stories that speak to business growth. Our deep expertise in digital analytics, tailored specifically for e-commerce, helps brands unlock the full potential of their data. If you’re ready to elevate your approach to shopping behavior tracking and drive meaningful outcomes, connect with us today. Discover how we can help you make data-driven decisions that resonate with your customers and boost your bottom line.