How to Create a Monthly Sales Report in Google Analytics

Tracking your monthly sales in Google Analytics shouldn't feel like a chore. This guide will walk you through exactly how to build a clear, insightful monthly sales report in GA4. We'll start with the quickest way to get the core numbers and then move on to building custom reports to uncover what's truly driving your revenue.

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First, A Quick Prerequisite: E-commerce Tracking Must Be Active

Before you can report on sales, Google Analytics needs to know about them. If you haven't set up e-commerce tracking yet, you won't see any revenue or purchase data in your reports. Getting this configured is your absolute first step.

For Google Analytics 4, setting up e-commerce tracking usually involves one of these methods:

• For platforms like Shopify or WooCommerce: Most e-commerce platforms have built-in integrations or official plugins that handle the GA4 setup for you. You typically just need to add your GA4 Measurement ID in your platform's settings, and the integration will automatically send purchase data to Google Analytics.
• For custom websites: You or your developer will need to implement e-commerce events (like view_item, add_to_cart, and purchase) using Google Tag Manager (GTM). This requires adding specific code snippets to your site that fire when customers take these actions.

If you open your reports and see $0 for revenue, your e-commerce tracking is likely not configured correctly. Make sure that's sorted out first before building any reports.

Building a Quick Monthly Sales Report (The Easy Way)

For a fast, high-level overview of your monthly sales, you can use the standard reports already built into GA4. This is the perfect place to start for a quick health check on your business.

Step 1: Navigate to the Monetization Reports

In the left-hand navigation menu of your GA4 property, click on Reports. From there, expand the Monetization section and click on E-commerce purchases.

This report is your primary hub for all sales and product-related data. You'll immediately see a chart of your item revenue over time and a table below showing performance by product.

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Step 2: Set Your Date Range to "Last Month"

In the top-right corner of the report, you'll see a date range selector. Click on it. GA4 provides several preset options. Simply select Last month and click Apply. Your report will now display data for the entire previous calendar month.

Step 3: Understand the Key Sales Metrics

The table at the bottom of the E-commerce purchases report gives you a good start. By default, it's organized by Item Name, but the summary totals at the top and the columns are what matter most for a top-level sales report. Key metrics include:

• Total revenue: This is the headline number. It's the total revenue generated from all e-commerce purchases.
• E-commerce purchases: The total number of completed transactions. This is often called "Orders" or "Transactions" previously in Universal Analytics.
• Average purchase revenue: This is calculated by dividing Total Revenue by E-commerce Purchases. It's your average order value (AOV).
• Items purchased: The total number of individual product units sold.

For a basic monthly summary, these four metrics give you a solid understanding of your overall performance.

Adding Dimensions to Understand Why You Made Sales

Knowing how much revenue you made is only half the story. The more important question is often "Where did that revenue come from?" Standard reports can be customized with different "dimensions" to answer this.

To change the primary dimension, click the dropdown menu at the top-left of the data table (by default it says "Item name"). Let's change it to answer some common business questions.

Which Marketing Campaigns Drove the Most Revenue?

To see how your specific marketing efforts performed, you need to look at campaign data. In the dropdown, search for and select Session campaign.

The table will now show you revenue and transaction data for each marketing campaign you're running (assuming you are using UTM parameters for tracking). This is essential for understanding your marketing ROI.

Which Channels are Your Sales Superstars?

Did organic search, paid ads, or social media drive the most sales? To find out, change the primary dimension to Session source / medium.

This breaks down your revenue by the origin of your traffic. You'll see sources like:

• google / organic (from SEO)
• google / cpc (from Google Ads)
• facebook.com / referral (from Facebook)
• (direct) / (none) (from users typing your URL directly)

This view quickly tells you which channels are your most lucrative, helping you decide where to double down on your efforts.

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Do Mobile Shoppers Convert as Well as Desktop Users?

Understanding user behavior on different devices is critical. To check this, set the primary dimension to Device category. The table will update to show you a breakdown of revenue, transactions, and conversion rates across desktop, mobile, and tablet. This insight can help you optimize your site's user experience for the devices your customers actually use to buy.

Building a Powerful Custom Monthly Sales Report with "Explore"

Sometimes the standard reports don't have the exact combination of metrics and dimensions you need. When you want to build a truly custom report from scratch, the Explore section is where you need to be.

Explorations let you drag and drop dimensions and metrics to build tables and charts that are tailored to your specific questions.

Step 1: Create a New "Free form" Exploration

In the left-hand navigation, click Explore and then choose Free form from the template gallery.

This gives you a blank canvas. The interface is divided into three main sections: Variables (where you import what you want to work with), Tab Settings (where you build the report), and the Canvas on the right (where your report appears).

Step 2: Add Your Dimensions and Metrics

In the Variables column, you'll see sections for Dimensions and Metrics. You need to import the data points you want to analyze.

Click the + icon next to "Dimensions." Search for and import the following:

• Session source / medium
• Session campaign
• Device category

Next, click the + icon next to "Metrics." Search for and import these:

• Total revenue
• E-commerce purchases
• Average purchase revenue
• Session conversion rate

After importing, your Dimensions and Metrics sections will be populated and ready to use.

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Step 3: Build the Report Table

Now it's time to build your report by dragging and dropping your selections into the Tab Settings column.

• Drag Session source / medium from Variables to the Rows box in Tab Settings.
• Drag Total revenue, E-commerce purchases, and Session conversion rate from Variables to the Values box in Tab Settings.

As you do this, the report canvas on the right will instantly populate with a table showing your key sales metrics broken down by traffic channel. Don't forget to set the date range to "Last month" here as well.

Step 4: Save and Name Your Report

Once you are happy with the layout, give your exploration a descriptive name like "Monthly Sales Report - Channel Performance" in the top-left corner. Your explorations are saved automatically, so you can return to this same report each month and simply update the date range. No need to rebuild it every time!

Final Thoughts

Creating your monthly sales report in Google Analytics is manageable once you know where to find the key reports and how to customize them for your needs. Use the standard E-commerce purchase reports for quick summaries and jump into the Explore section when you need to answer more specific business questions by combining different data points.

Here at Graphed, we created our entire platform to eliminate the manual work involved in reporting. Manually pulling data from Google Analytics and then trying to stitch it together with stats from Shopify, Facebook Ads, and Google Ads takes hours. That's why we have one-click integrations that connect all those sources for you. Instead of navigating report builders, you can just ask questions in plain English like, "Create a dashboard showing our total revenue and ad spend across all channels for last month," and get an answer instantly.