A Practical Guide to E-commerce Tracking

Running an online shop means knowing which marketing efforts pay off, where shoppers drop out and which changes lead to more sales. E-commerce tracking helps you answer those questions, so you can make informed decisions and improve your shop’s performance.

This guide covers the main tracking methods and tools, along with the steps you need to collect reliable data from your shop.

What is e-commerce tracking?

E-commerce tracking records selected interactions in your shop. The data you can collect depends on your implementation, settings and, where required, visitors’ consent. Typical areas to analyse include:

• Traffic sources: Where do your customers come from: organic search, social media, paid ads or other channels?
• Customer journeys: Which pages do people visit, how do they move through your shop, and where do they drop out before buying?
• Conversion tracking: Which actions do visitors complete, such as making a purchase? The data alone cannot reliably tell you what motivated them.
• Basket analysis: Which products do shoppers add to their baskets, and which baskets turn into orders?
• Revenue by channel: Which channels generate the most revenue?

These insights help you make better decisions about your marketing and your shop.

Related reading:
The customer journey: what you need to know
Customer journeys, funnels and click paths: how they differ and connect

Tools for e-commerce tracking

There are plenty of tools for tracking activity in your shop. Here are some of the main options:

Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

Google Analytics 4 offers a wide range of ways to analyse your shop’s performance, including:

• Event-based measurement of product views, basket activity and purchases. You need to set up the relevant e-commerce events first.
• Google Ads integration for more detailed campaign tracking
• Data-driven attribution, which uses a model to assign credit for conversions to different touchpoints. It does not establish cause and effect.

Google Tag Manager (GTM)

Google Tag Manager lets you manage tracking tags in one place. You first need to install its container; tracking shop events may also require your e-commerce platform to pass data to it. GTM is not an analytics tool in its own right. You still need to configure your tags and check any consent requirements.

Trackboxx: cookieless analytics

Trackboxx is an option for analysing website activity without cookies. With e-commerce tracking set up correctly, you can access reports such as those listed below. Whether your particular setup complies with data protection law and requires consent depends on how it is implemented and how it processes data:

✅ Product revenue
✅ Top-performing sales channel
✅ Basket abandonment
✅ Best-selling product
✅ Best-performing day within the selected period
✅ Your most-viewed products

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Hotjar and Microsoft Clarity

Heatmaps and session recordings, available in tools such as Hotjar and Microsoft Clarity, can help you spot usability issues. They cannot tell you for certain why someone leaves. Before enabling these features, check consent requirements, sensitive-input masking and the relevant settings.

Matomo (formerly Piwik)

Matomo is an open-source alternative to Google Analytics, available as a self-hosted installation or a cloud service. Your hosting choice and settings give you control over how data is processed, but choosing the tool does not automatically make your setup GDPR-compliant.

E-commerce metrics worth tracking

Not every data point deserves equal attention. Focus on the key performance indicators (KPIs) that help you run your business:

• Conversion rate: The proportion of visitors or sessions that result in a purchase. Use a consistent denominator and compare relevant periods, channels and devices rather than relying on a universal target.
• Average order value (AOV): How much does a customer spend per order?
• Checkout abandonment rate: The proportion of started checkouts that do not end in a completed purchase. This is different from the abandonment rate for all shopping baskets.
• Customer lifetime value (CLV): How much is a customer worth to your business over the course of the relationship?
• Customer acquisition cost (CAC): How much does it cost to acquire a new customer?

How to set up e-commerce tracking

Use this step-by-step plan to improve your tracking:

1. Define your goals

What do you actually need to know? Set clear KPIs for your shop.

2. Set up your tracking tools

Choose an analytics tool that fits your questions and your e-commerce platform, such as GA4 or Trackboxx. A tag manager can help with implementation, but it is not essential. Avoid counting the same activity twice, and check data protection and consent requirements before you start.

3. Track key events

Track actions such as:

• Product views
• Add-to-basket events
• Checkout starts and completed purchases, so you can measure drop-off between clearly defined steps
• Purchases and revenue

4. Check your data and test improvements

Start with test orders to check that events, order IDs, currencies and revenue values are recorded correctly. Prevent duplicate purchase events and account for refunds in your analysis. Compare your reports with the orders in your shop: gaps in measurement and different attribution rules can explain discrepancies. Once the data is reliable, look for bottlenecks and test improvements.

Using tracking data to improve conversions

Use UTM parameters: Label campaigns consistently, without putting personal data in URLs.
Review your retargeting setup: Only target interested visitors again when the relevant data protection and consent requirements are met.
Simplify checkout: Remove unnecessary obstacles and check whether the change actually leads to more completed purchases.
Run A/B tests: Compare product pages or calls to action using a clear success metric and enough data to draw meaningful conclusions.

Remarketing and retargeting in e-commerce

Growing an online shop is not just about attracting new visitors. It also means bringing back people who have already shown an interest. Remarketing and retargeting can help you reach those shoppers again and improve conversion rates.

What do remarketing and retargeting mean?

Both terms describe ways to reach people who have already interacted with your website or shop. They might have viewed a product, added something to their basket or started checkout without completing their purchase.

Instead of focusing only on new visitors, you also reach people who already have some interest in what you sell.

How does remarketing work in e-commerce?

An installed Meta Pixel can send website events to Meta, while a tag manager can control when that tag fires. Where consent requirements and platform rules allow it, these events can be used to build audiences for relevant ads. Google Tag Manager does not create advertising audiences itself.

A common example of retargeting is reaching a shopper who added a product to their basket but left without buying it. A later ad can offer a timely reminder or a discount to encourage them to return and complete their purchase.

What can remarketing do for your business?

People do not always buy on their first visit. Remarketing can remind them of a product and help them recognise your brand. Results depend on factors such as the audience, the offer, how often people see the ads and how long they take to decide on a purchase.

A higher measured conversion rate among people who were already interested does not prove that an ad generated extra sales. Review costs, overlap with other channels and, where possible, the campaign’s incremental impact rather than assuming it will deliver additional revenue.