Google Analytics integration

Google Analytics helps you to understand how your customers are engaging with your store content and how they interact with store pages. Google Analytics helps you to get a deeper understanding of your customers so that you can improve customer experience and get better results.

From version 9.1.4 onwards, HCL Commerce is integrated with Google Analytics by default.

Before you use Google Analytics, you must create a Google Analytics account and complete the required configurations.

Supported versions

HCL Commerce Version 9.1.4.0 or later From version 9.1.4 onwards, HCL Commerce supports integration with Universal Analytics.

HCL Commerce Version 9.1.6.0 or later From version 9.1.6 onwards, HCL Commerce also supports integration with Google Analytics 4. Data collection tagging is added to React sample stores.

Note: You can use both Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4 at the same time. However, there is no Google Analytics 4 reporting support in the Management Center. Analytics data sent from the store to a Google Analytics 4 property can be viewed inside the native Google Analytics tool. See Google Analytics web page to analyze the data.

Note: The Google Analytics 4 reporting APIs are in the alpha/beta state for the 9.1.6 version. The Management Center integration with these APIs will be introduced in a future release. See Analytics Reporting guidelines for more information.

From version 9.1.12 onwards, HCL Commerce supports some Management Center reporting for the Google Analytics 4.

Note: The following tools only support Universal Analytics reporting inside of the Management Center:

Search tool
Analytics tool

The Marketplace tool has introduced some new analytics for marketplace sellers to view. The Marketplace tool supports both Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4 reporting.

HCL Commerce Version 9.1.13.0 or later From version 9.1.13 onwards, the Analytics and Search tools support Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4 integration for reporting.

HCL Commerce Version 9.1.14.0 or later From version 9.1.14 onwards, HCL Commerce supports Google Analytics integration for the Ruby and Ruby B2B stores.

Architecture

How does the integration work?

Each store is tracked by a Property in Google Analytics.

Universal Analytics: This Property has a Tracking ID and points to the store URL.
Google Analytics 4: This Property has a Measurement ID and points to the live store URL.
Note: You are required to configure Google Analytics 4 for live and Auth environments. Events collected from the live stores can be viewed from the Auth Management Center stores.

Triggers (events in the store) and tags are defined in the Google Tag Manager. These tags are associated with the Tracking ID or Measurement ID of a Property in Google Analytics.

Data for user activities like page views, searches, products added to cart, products removed from cart, product checkouts, product purchases and so on is sent to Google Tag Manager in the form of events.