Google Analytics offers two types of ecommerce metrics that provide quantitative data about ecommerce events:
- An event-scoped metric counts the number of times an ecommerce event was triggered.
- An item-scoped metric counts the number of times users interacted with items in an ecommerce event.
For example, a customer adds 3 quantities of the Stan and Friends Tee and 2 quantities of the Google Grey Women's Tee to their shopping cart. You would see the following ecommerce metric values:
- The event-scoped metric "Add to carts" would be 1
- The item-scoped metric "Items added to cart" for the Stan and Friends Tee would be 3
- The item-scoped metric "Items added to cart" for the Google Grey Women's Tee would be 2
How are the metrics different
The following table describes the difference between the event-scoped and item-scoped version of each ecommerce metric:
| Event-scoped metric | What it is | Item-scoped metric | What it is | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Add to carts |
The number of times users triggered the add_to_cart event. |
Items added to cart |
The number of items in the add_to_cart event. |
If a user added 3 quantities of the Stan via an "Add to cart" button and Friends Tee and then added 4 quantities of the Google Grey Women's Tee via the same button, then:
|
|
Checkouts |
The number of times users triggered the begin_checkout event. |
Items checked out |
The number of items in the begin_checkout event. |
If a user began checkout with 3 quantities of the Stan and Friends Tee and 2 quantities of the Google Grey Women's Tee, then:
|
|
Item-list click events |
The number of times users triggered the select_item event. |
Items clicked in list |
The number of items in the select_item event. |
If a user clicked a Stan and Friends Tee in a list, then:
|
|
Item-list view events |
The number of times users triggered the view_item_list event. |
Items viewed in list |
The number of items in the view_item_list event. |
If a user views a list comprising of 3 quantities of the Stan and Friends Tee and 2 quantities of the Google Grey Women's Tee, then:
|
|
Item view events |
The number of times users triggered the view_item event. |
Items viewed |
The number of items in the view_item event. |
If a user views the Stan and Friends Tee, then:
|
|
Promotion clicks |
The number of times users triggered the select_promotion event. |
Items clicked in promotion |
The number of items in the select_promotion event. |
If a user clicked a promotion for the Stan and Friends Tee, then:
|
|
Promotion views |
The number of times users triggered the view_promotion event. |
Items viewed in promotion |
The number of items in the view_promotion event. |
If a user viewed a promotion for the Stan and Friends Tee, then:
|
|
Purchases |
The number of times users triggered the purchase event. |
Items purchased |
The number of items in the purchase event. |
If a user purchased 3 quantities of the Stan and Friends Tee and 2 quantities of the Google Grey Women's Tee, then:
|
|
Ecommerce quantity |
The number of items included in an ecommerce event. |
Item quantity |
The number of units for a single item included in an ecommerce event |
If a user purchased 3 quantities of the Stan and Friends Tee and 2 quantities of the Google Grey Women's Tee, then:
|
|
Refunds |
The number of times users triggered the refund event. |
Item refund amount |
The number of items in the refund event. |
If a user was refunded 3 quantities of the Stan and Friends Tee and 2 quantities of the Google Grey Women's Tee, then:
|
Using reports to see ecommerce metrics
The Ecommerce purchases report includes item-scoped dimensions and metrics that let you see how well each item is performing.
By default, the Ecommerce purchases report includes the "Item name" dimension and metrics like "Items viewed" and "Items added to cart", which allow you to see how many times each item is viewed and added to cart.
Using explorations to see ecommerce metrics
When you want to investigate ecommerce activity further, you can create an exploration. Explorations can include item-scoped dimensions and metrics or event-scoped dimensions and metrics.
For example, the following exploration uses item-scoped dimensions and metrics and shows that 5,697 items were sold, including 291 Google Ombre Lime Pen's. You could add the "Total purchasers" metric to see that only 616 purchasers drove those sales and only 27 purchasers drove the Google Ombre Lime Pen sales.
To see how many times the purchase event was triggered in the same period, you can use the event-scoped "Purchases'' metric. By applying the "Purchases" metric, you can see how many times users completed purchases on your website or app.
The "Purchases" metric (and other event-scoped metrics) is not fully compatible with the item-scoped dimensions like "Item name", so you can't break down the data like you did using "Items purchased" or "Total purchasers".
However, you can apply a filter to find out that the Google Ombre Lime Pen was purchased 27 times. When applying a filter for an item-scoped dimension to an exploration with an event-scoped metric, the filter must use the "exactly matches" match type.
Note: Event-scoped and item-scoped dimensions and metrics are incompatible with one another in reports and explorations. Any time you use an item-scoped dimension, you must select an item-scoped metric rather than the equivalent event-scoped metric. The same applies to event-scoped dimensions and metrics. For example, you can't look at the "Item brand" dimension with the "Add to carts" metric, but you can look at "Item brand" with "Items added to cart".