Google analytics & “content groups” usage in e-commerce digital marketing

As the owner of an e-commerce store, you should learn how to get the most out of Content Marketing and Google Analytics combo, to ensure the growth of your business. This is where you will need to pay special attention to content grouping. Content groups in Google Analytics refer to a rule-based grouping method. It can include one or more groups. For example, assume that you are managing an e-commerce store that offers clothing. Then you will be able to have two content groups, where the first one is for men’s clothes and the second one is for women’s clothes. This basic grouping can help you to determine content performance and guide you with content and conversion optimisation process. While keeping that in mind, let’s learn more about content groups in e-commerce.

What is a Content group?

A content group is simply a collection of web pages, which are based upon a similar theme. When it comes to your e-commerce store, you can create content groups based on the similar items that you are offering. You can also take the people who buy them into consideration when creating a content group.

With the help of a content group, you will be able to aggregate the traffic that comes into your website for different forms of content you have on the e-commerce site. On the other hand, content groups can help you to check the performance of a specific content group quickly and compare that with the performance of other groups for a target audience or any other segment. Insights on product pages can be, for example, used for clarification what types of product templates have best conversion rates.

How to determine content groups and content grouping for your e-commerce website?

Content grouping for your website should be determined based on what you are offering to the customers via your e-commerce store. Let’s take a quick look at the example of an e-commerce store that sells clothing products. Some of the categories that you can see in an online clothing store include men shirts, men trousers, men footwear, women shirts, women trousers, and women’s sportswear. Based on that, you will be able to create content groups.

For example, you can create a content group for men. Under this group, you will be able to include men shirts, men trousers, and men footwear. Likewise, you can create another content group for women by including the categories women shirts, women trousers, and women sportswear.

When it comes to Google Analytics, you will only be able to create 5 content groupings. Therefore, it is essential for you to be selective when creating the content groups. In case if you come across more than five content groups, you can think about picking the content groups that attract most traffic. Or else, you will be able to create content groups based on the best-selling products you offer through your online store.

One of the most important things you should keep in mind is to double-check and confirm before you create them on Google Analytics. That’s because you will not be able to delete a content group after creating that on Google Analytics. You will only have the option to turn on and turn off the content group. When you don’t want to see a specific content grouping on the report, you just need to turn that off.

How to create content grouping in Google Analytics?

Here’s a step-by-step guide that you can follow to create content groups in e-commerce within Google Analytics.

1.    The very first thing you should do is to determine the names of the content categories and the number of categories that you will be using under the content grouping within Google Analytics reporting view.

2.    Next, you will need to determine the names of sub-categories and the number of them, which you will be using as content groups within Google Analytics. The content groups will be under each content grouping in Google Analytics.

3.    You will now need to figure out all the web pages, which will be categorized under content group. Each web page will be classified under a content group.

4.    Once you have all information in hand, you can figure out the best method to group web pages in the e-commerce store. This is where you will have three different approaches to consider. You will be able to group with rule definitions, group with extraction, or group with tracking code. It is up to you to pick an approach out of these and proceed.

5.    You will now need to go to the admin section of Google Analytics view, and click on the link called Content Grouping.

6.    Next, you can click on the red colored button named New Content Grouping.

7.    You can add any name to the content grouping. Then you can go ahead and add the methods to group the pages of your website so that you can end up with creating the content groups. It is possible for you to add the same web page into multiple content groups.

8.    Once you are done, you can click on the “Save” button. After that, you can allow Google Analytics to collect content grouping data and show them in the report.

It would usually take up to 20 minutes for data to be visible in the report. You will need to understand that content groups will only show data from the date on where you create them in Google Analytics v3. Optimisation results based on your marketing strategy and data from content groups will be visible and comparable as soon as new content is published.

How to report on Content Grouping in Google Analytics?

After you complete configuring content grouping, and their respective content groups, you will be able to find information related to them in numerous Google Analytics reports. In fact, the reports will be available to you in the form of primary dimension or secondary dimension.

Assume that you create a men’s content grouping for your e-commerce store. Then you can find respective content groups within Google Analytics. In here, content grouping will be visible to you in the form of a primary dimension. The content groups will be visible to you in the form of dimension values under “All Pages” report. You will be able to go to custom reports and use content groups in the form of primary dimension as well. On the other hand, you will be able to use content groups in the form of a secondary dimension under different Google Analytics report. The Channels report is a perfect example for such a report.

You will also be able to use content grouping as you create dashboards within Google Analytics. You can create a content performance dashboard by including the parameters that you want. All you have to do is to go toe customization option under the Google Analytics menu, and then click on Create option. Then you can include all the widgets based on your preferences and create a custom dashboard for reporting.

After you create a dashboard, you will be able to add filters and narrow down data that you have into specific parameters. You will just need to add filters, and determine what should be shown, and what should not be shown.

Final words

Tracking the analytics of your e-commerce store is something that you must do. Then you can figure out the areas where you are doing good and the areas that you need to improve. With the help of content groups in e-commerce under Google Analytics, you will be able to get the job done without going through any struggles.