Using Google eCommerce with Zaui

If you haven't already, go check out our article on Google Analytics. This article will focus on the Google eCommerce tool.

This article will cover the following topics:

• Defining eCommerce
• Why use eCommerce Tracking?
• How does eCommerce Tracking Work?
• What Data can be Tracked?
• How do I configure eCommerce Tracking?
• Troubleshooting Issues 

Defining eCommerce

Electronic commerce or eCommerce refers to the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as your website. All of your sales flowing through Zaui are electronic but eCommerce specifically collects the purchase activity from online sales channels. 

The type of eCommerce from your sales channel will almost always be business-to-consumer (B2C), however, when working with sales agents or wholesalers, it can be business-to-business (B2B). 

Why Use eCommerce Tracking?

Transaction data is a vital piece of information when analyzing online business performance. While it is great to track and measure conversion rates using your Google Analytics data, revenue is a much more tangible way to measure for many business owners. Having the eCommerce data in your web analytics application makes it easier to perform analysis. 

Not convinced yet? Here are some key points that might motivate you:

• It's free!
• Reporting and data visualization
• Amalgamation with your existing analytics data
• Help to understand your market better
• Quantifying your sales online,
• Collect demographic information of your online shoppers

How Does It Work?

Let's break it down here and walk through what actually happens:

1. Customers submit their credit card information into your Zaui Online Booking Engine.
2. Zaui processes all the information, including authenticating the credit card information.
3. After processing the transaction, Zaui prepares to send the booking confirmation back to the customer. 
4. While preparing this receipt, Zaui extracts the relevant transaction data and sends it along to your analytics account. 

What Data Can Be Tracked?

Google Analytics can collect two types of eCommerce data: transaction data and product data.

Transaction data describes the overall transaction (booking ID, total sale, tax, shipping, etc.) while the product data describes the items purchased (ZAUI SKU, description, categories, quantities). 

How do I Configure eCommerce Tracking?

To enable eCommerce tracking for an online booking engine between Zaui and your analytics account, there are some settings that must be done in your Google Analytics account, before enabling eCommerce tracking in Zaui.

Settings For Google Analytics Account

1. Log into your account.
2. Click on the profile name for your tracking code.
3. Click to "edit" the profile.
4. Click to "edit" the "Main Website Profile Information".
5. From here, click the "Yes, an E-Commerce Site".  This will enable your account to accept eCommerce transaction submission from Zaui.

1. Log into your account.
2. Click on the profile name for your tracking code.
3. Click to "edit" the profile.
4. Under Goals, click to "add" goal for the goal set 1.
5. Enter the following information:

Goal Set-Up: Custom 
Goal Name:  Zaui Web Booking Engine

Goal Type:  URL Destination

Under Goal Details

Destination:  Equal To (page=Confirmation)

Goal Value: 1

Under Goal Funnel

URL   Name

Step 1:  ^/modules/webBooking/index/.php$|(^/modules/webBooking/$)  Engine - Home Page	Zaui Web
Step 2:  (action=Details)    Engine - Activity/Product Page	Zaui Web
Step 3:  (action=Contents) Engine - Payment Page	Zaui Web

Settings for Zaui

1. Login into Zaui as an Administrator
2. Navigate to Settings > Manage Internet Bookings > Manage Portals and click on the portal where you want to enable eCommerce
3. Under the Google settings, click to have enabled "eCommerce".  

 You must also have Analytics enabled, and supply your analytics code (refer to our article on Google Analytics to obtain this code)

That's it!  Your eCommerce information will now flow into your analytics account as transactions happen online.

eCommerce Tracking Troubleshooting

Below are some common issues encountered with eCommerce tracking and their solutions.

All transactions sources are your website - The problem is most likely that the cross-domain tracking is incorrectly configured in your analytics account. A simple way to identify the source of this problem is to examine the data in the All Traffic Sources Report. Use the eCommerce tab to identify which traffic sources are driving revenue. If your website's hostname is listed in the report, there is probably an issue with the cross-domain tracking.

Zaui online sales are higher than reported in Google (missing transactions in Google) - It is not uncommon for some transactions to be missing from Google Analytics. In general, analytics should track most transactions. Some potential reasons for this can include:

• Lack of Javascript support on customers browser, or mobile device
• Customers abandoning their transaction, after credit card payment, but before the system has completed sending the transaction information to Google. 

Zaui online sales are lower than reported in Google - this is likely due to a cancelled booking being done in Zaui. When you refund and cancel a booking in Zaui, the system doesn't send through these types of transactions back to Google.