Are you running an eCommerce site on WordPress using WooCommerce? Would you like an easy way to track sales conversions in Analytics without any premium plugins or difficult coding? You can create a simple goal in Google Analytics that will fire each time someone completes a purchase in WooCommerce by simply looking out for the order received URL snippet that is accessed following a successful completion. A little custom setup alongside the WooCommerce plugin from Automattic is all it takes to gain some very useful insight into your website’s performance.

Tracking WooCommerce sales in WordPress through Analytics

To set up a Google Analytics goal for sales on WooCommerce, you must first access the Admin panel. Once there, make sure the property is that of the website you want to track, and the view is all website data. In the view column, select goals to get started. Don’t worry, it’s easy, and you can always create another goal or edit this one if you make a mistake.

Analytics goal creation instructions

Here you can create a new goal by using the built-in wizard. There are three steps to setting up a goal in Analytics this way.

1. Goal Setup – You can select “place an order” as the template of choice and move on.
2. Goal Description – Name your goal “Completed Purchase” or something similar to help identify it from other goals. Select destination as the type of goal.
3. Goal Details – In the details, under Destination, select Regular Expression and enter “checkout/order-received/” into the text box. You can optionally apply a monetary value to each completed purchase.

Once you’ve finished these steps, you can click re-verify this goal to ensure that everything is working properly. If you’ve had previous completed sales in the last 7 days, then you will receive a non-zero value for the conversion rate and can start gathering sales data. If this is a new build or if you previously haven’t had any sales, then don’t be surprised that verification shows no previous completions.

Verify your goal is being tracked

This goal works for all purchases made through a WooCommerce installation on WordPress (also, in any language if you are using WPML for translations). By default, WooCommerce will incorporate this endpoint into your domain’s URL. The exact location can change depending on settings, but we’re only looking for the specific text expression itself, anything else will be ignored.

If everything looks in order, click save and you’ll begin gathering data on WooCommerce conversions. You can now see which campaigns and sources perform better than others, to maximize your return on investment and plan for future marketing expansions! Of course, purchases must be coming through for this goal to work. If you haven’t had any sales recently, then don’t be surprised when the verification test shows no completions in the last 7 days. If you have limited data or are just getting started, you can try making a purchase yourself. Generate a one-time use, 100% discount coupon and then use it to make a purchase so you can verify the goal is being tracked.

Now that you’re properly tracking your sales, why not visit our blog to get more digital marketing tips and tricks or jump right in with topics like on-page SEO best practices or how Google is going to speed shame slow websites.

WooCommerce Order Completion Goal Setup Video

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