How to Add Google Analytics to Shopify (Google Analytics 4 Guide)

In this simple step by step guide, we show you exactly how to add Google Analytics to your Shopify store.

What is Google Analytics 4?

Google Analytics 4 is the latest version of Google’s free analytics tool; it replaces the company’s ‘Universal Analytics’ product, which has been in use since 2012.

Google Analytics 4 provides more detailed information about user behavior on your website or online store (specifically where conversions and user journeys are concerned).

But it also gives people visiting your site more protection when it comes to their privacy.

Some of the data Google Analytics 4 gives you includes…

…and much more.

There is a very wide range of reports in the tool, and Google Analytics lets you filter your data and visualize the specific data sets you need. It’s well worth adding the tool to your Shopify store, even if you’re happy with the built-in reporting features of Shopify (Google Analytics can give you a lot of additional context about your users!).

Right, let’s get to it.

How to set up Google Analytics 4 in Shopify

1. Create a Google account

In order to use Google Analytics you need to have a Google account.

(If you already have a Gmail account or a Google Workspace account, you’re all set and can jump ahead to step 2 now.)

If you don’t have any kind of Google account yet, you’ll need to go to the Google account sign-up page.

You simply enter your details into the fields provided and click ‘Next’.

Note that you don’t need a Gmail address to create a Google account. Google gives you the option to use an email address with another provider, such as Yahoo or Outlook.

You’ll then need to provide some additional information to Google, such as your phone number and a recovery email address for your account. You’ll also need to accept Google’s terms of service.

Once done, you will be brought to your new Google account page.

2. Set up Analytics and get your tracking code

To set up a Google Analytics account, sign in to Google Analytics.

When you do this, you’ll see a blue ‘Start measuring‘ button in the middle of the Analytics welcome page.

Click on this button.

You’ll then be taken to the Google Analytics account setup screen.

The first thing you need to do is enter an account name for your Google Analytics account. It is usually best to simply go with the name of your business for this.

You can then choose the type of data you wish to share with Google.

Having done that, click ‘Next.’

You will now see the ‘Property setup‘ section.

Enter the name of your business in the property name field and choose your preferred time zone and currency. Then, click ‘Next‘.

You now have the option to enter some information about your business such as your business industry, the size of your company and how you intend to use Google Analytics.

(You can skip this step if you wish.)

Next, click ‘Create‘.

At this point you need to accept Google’s terms of service for using Google Analytics.

Make sure that you select your country / region in the top left corner of the panel.

If your business is located in the EU (or some of your customers are located there), you’ll also need to tick the check box beside ‘I also accept the Data Processing Terms as required by GDPR’. 

Once you’ve done that, click ‘I Accept‘.

You will now be brought to the Admin page of your Google Analytics account for your new property.

Go to the ‘Choose a platform‘ section, and click on the ‘Web‘ button.

You will then see a page that lets you create a ‘data stream’ between Google Analytics and your Shopify store.

You now need to enter your store’s domain into the ‘website URL‘ field.

Then enter your business name into the ‘Stream name’ box

Then click ‘Create stream’.

On the page that appears, scroll down to the ‘Google tag’ section and click ‘Configure tag settings’.

On the next page, click ‘Installation instructions‘ in the ‘Your Google tag’ section.

And on the page that appears, click ‘Install manually‘.

You’ll then see your Google tag code. Copy this code to your clipboard.

Next, go to your Shopify store account. Navigate to Online Store > Themes, and then click on the three dots beside your theme’s ‘Customize’ button and click ‘Edit code’.

Next, click on ‘theme.liquid‘ in the menu on the left hand side of the page.

Place your cursor to the right of the ‘<head>’ text inside your Shopify theme’s. Hit return on your keyboard to go to a new line and paste in your Google tag code here (just below the ‘<head>’ tag).

Once that’s done, click ‘Save’.

Congratulations — you’ve just enabled Google Analytics on your Shopify store!

But you’re not quite done yet. You’ve got to…

3. Test that Google Analytics 4 is connected to your Shopify store

Now that you’ve completed all the necessary steps to connect Google Analytics 4 to your Shopify store, it’s time to test that everything is working as it should.

To do this, you can simply enter your store domain name into a web browser.

View some of your store pages and interact with your store for a few seconds. This will create some data on your Shopify store that Google Analytics will gather through the connection you have just set up.

Then, go back to Google Analytics and click on ‘Real-time’ in the Google Analytics menu.

This will show you some information on current store visitors as well as visits in the last 30 minutes.

If you see anything like the image above, you know that Google Analytics 4 is now successfully connected to your Shopify store and gathering data on your customers’ behavior across your store’s pages.

And that’s it!

I hope you find this explanation of how to enable Google Analytics on your Shopify store useful.

If you have any questions, please feel free to add them to the comments section below — we read them all and will do our best to help.