Google Analytics (GA4)

Your Dashboard provides a great overview of your shop's stats. But if you're on a Platinum or Diamond plan and itching to do a deeper dive into data, you'll want to use the Google Analytics integration.

Google Analytics (GA4), a free service provided by Google, offers comprehensive statistics about your store's customers, including their sources, browsing behavior, purchases, and more. This valuable information enables you to make informed decisions regarding your site's content, organization, display, and marketing strategies. By utilizing this data-driven approach, you can confidently make key choices and optimize your website for success. There's nothing quite like real data to back the decisions you make!

Basic and Advanced Events

Big Cartel supports GA4 for tracking a broad array of events so you can get the best out of tracking, optimization and ad targeting. GA4 integration is only available for paid plans (Platinum and Diamond).

The events we track for our paid plans vary based on the plan you have. Sellers on the Diamond plan will get additional reports available to them in Google Analytics. Unlock detailed insights into your customers’ behaviors and shopping patterns when they visit your shop. Using the full suite of e-commerce events in Google Analytics, you’ll be able to tailor your marketing and sales strategies more effectively, leading to higher conversion rates and more revenue.

See our complete set of GA4 supported events by plan

GA4 Advanced Reports

Leverage advanced reports to up-level your Google Ads campaigns. These events and new data points provide you with the opportunity to optimize your marketing strategies and campaigns, increasing their effectiveness and reach. By utilizing Google's comprehensive suite of tools, you can make data-driven decisions that will enhance your marketing performance and drive better results.

Heads up! Advanced events are only tracked for shops on the Diamond plan. See our complete set of GA4 supported events.

Here’s just a few examples of questions you’ll be able to answer with the advanced events:

• What product variants are being viewed and which are being added to the cart?

• What is my revenue total to date?

• Where are my visitors coming from?

• Of visitors that make a purchase, how many are first-time purchasers?

  

Details

• Price: Free

• Requirements: Big Cartel account on a paid plan(advanced events require a Diamond plan) + Google Analytics account

• Developer: Big Cartel

• Support: Big Cartel and Google Analytics

Setup

Create a Google Analytics account

First, you’ll need to open a Google Analytics account. If you already have one, you can skip down to Create a property for your Big Cartel shop in Google Analytics.

1. Head to https://analytics.google.com.

2. In Admin, click Create, then select Account.

3. Provide an account name. Configure the data-sharing settings to control which data you share with Google.

4. Click Next to add the first property to the account.

Create a property for your Big Cartel shop in Google Analytics

1. Are you continuing from "Create an Analytics account", above? If so, skip to step 2. Otherwise, in Admin, click Create, then select Property.

2. Enter a name for the property and select the reporting time zone and currency and click Next.

3. Select your industry category and business size and click Next.

4. Select your business objectives (we recommend selecting the first 4 objectives) and click Create. If you are setting up a new account, you’ll need to accept the Analytics Terms of Service and the Data Processing Amendment.

5. Now you’ll set up your Data stream. Select Web as your platform.

6. Enter your Big Cartel URL and give your data stream a name. Click Create Stream.

7. You’ll copy the Measurement ID (not the Stream ID) to add to your Big Cartel admin - no need to add any code!

Connect your Big Cartel shop to your Google Analytics property

Now that you have your Google Measurement ID, you’ll need to add it to your Big Cartel admin. Here’s how:

1. Head over to the Account page in your Big Cartel admin and scroll down to the Advanced Analytics section.

2. Click Edit Advanced Analytics and paste the copied Measurement ID into the Google Analytics field.

3. Click Save and you are all set.

Set up cross-domain measurement

1. From the Admin section of your GA account, head to Data collection and modifications > Data Streams under the Property setting and select the data stream for your Big Cartel shop.

2. Select Configure tag settings > Configure your domains and then click Add Condition.

3. Now you'll add your conditions:

   • If you are using your Big Cartel URL (e.g.- myshop.bigcartel.com), enter Exactly matches in the Match type field and then your Big Cartel URL in the Domain field.

   • If you are using a custom domain, you'll add two conditions. First, enter Exactly matches in the Match type field and then your Big Cartel URL in the Domain field. Then you'll add another domain by entering Exactly matches in the Match type field and then your custom domain (www.mycustomdomain.com) in the Domain field.

4. Click Save.

Done! All of your store's stats will now be sent to Google Analytics automatically.

Curious if data is flowing? It’s important to keep in mind that it takes most reports in Google Analytics up to 24 hours to update after an action is taken in your shop. However, you can always check the Real-time report to ensure data is flowing from your Big Cartel shop to your Google Analytics account.

Supported Events

Here are the supported Google Analytics events by plan type on Big Cartel. To get the best integration, ad targeting and conversion reporting in GA4, you'll want to upgrade to our Diamond plan.

All checkout events, including the add to cart event, includes information about the order line items including product names, variant names, prices, discounts and categories.

Interested in more detail on GA4 events? Check out their specification of their recommended events for online sales.