Pressing the Red Button

Here are the steps to add the Google Analytics tracking code to a SWReg shopping basket.

1) Find the link(s) you use for your shopping basket. Modify the pages that include the links and the links themselves using Google’s instructions: “How do I use Google Analytics to track a 3rd-party shopping cart?“.

2) Now you will need to modify your SWReg shopping basket template. The SWReg templating system does look a little intimidating but it does work and it is easy to revert your changes in case you make any mistakes.

3) From the SWReg Admin menu, Click Customizable Template.

4) The template system is disabled by default, Click on the Enable Templates link on top.

5) Click the basket template for the style you use. Either ‘Shopping Basket Template’ or ‘Single Page Template (Cart & Details)’.

6) Click the Download System link, to download your current template.

7) Modify the template in a text editor, to include your Google Analytics code in the “head” tag. Just like any other page you have added the tracking code to on your site.

8 ) Return to SWReg, and upload your template.

9) Click the Back to Template List link and click the red light link to enable your template. The light will change to green.

10) Test your basket out. When you view source of the SWReg basket, you should be able to see the Google tracking code you put in. Remember you can always go back to the SWReg admin panel and disable custom templates if you run into any problems.

Now What
Wait a few days for the data to start collecting. Your swreg basket page should show up on Google Analytics. You can find it by going to the Content -> Content By Title report. If you have the default swreg basket it will show up as “SWREG – Shopping Basket”. Once you click this page, you can further drill down. One handy report is the Navigation Summary drill down. It will tell you what pages a user clicked on before and after the page and how many entered and exited from the page.

What More Can I Do
If you were feeling ambitious, you could add order tracking to the templates. I thought about it but it sounded like too much work for the return. In addition there are multiple order completion pages based on the payment method (credit card, paypal, etc.). So you would have to customize the process for each.