Graphed LogoGraphed
Login

How to Create an E-commerce Dashboard in Google Analytics

Cody Schneider•

Trying to find key sales data in a sea of standard Google Analytics reports can feel overwhelming. You know the important numbers are in there somewhere, but sifting through dozens of menus to get a simple overview is a surefire way to lose momentum. This guide gets straight to the point, showing you how to build a custom e-commerce dashboard in Universal Analytics and GA4 that puts all your critical metrics in one convenient place.

First Things First: Why You Need a Custom E-commerce Dashboard

Google Analytics provides a lot of out-of-the-box reports, but they are designed to serve every type of website imaginable. An e-commerce B2C site has wildly different needs than a B2B lead generation site or a content blog. A custom dashboard cuts through the noise and lets you focus only on the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that directly impact your store's growth.

A well-built dashboard gives you an immediate, at-a-glance "health check" for your online store. Instead of bouncing between reports for traffic, sales, and product performance, you see it all on one screen. This is perfect for:

  • Morning check-ins to see how sales are trending.

  • Monitoring the performance of a new marketing campaign.

  • Quickly identifying which products are selling best (and which aren't).

  • Sharing a high-level performance snapshot with your team or stakeholders.

Prerequisite: Make Sure Enhanced E-commerce is Enabled

Before you build a dashboard, you must be collecting the right data. For e-commerce stores using Universal Analytics (the older version), this means having Enhanced E-commerce tracking properly installed. This advanced tracking gives you access to a goldmine of data beyond simple transactions, including product views, add-to-carts, checkout steps, and more.

If you're using Google Analytics 4, the setup is a bit different, but the core idea is the same. You need to ensure purchase events and other e-commerce actions are being correctly tracked.

Verifying this is step zero. Without the right data flowing in, your dashboard widgets will come up empty. If you're not sure, check with your developer or an analytics expert to make sure your tracking is configured correctly.

Building Your Dashboard: The Two Flavors of Google Analytics

The process for creating a dashboard differs significantly between Universal Analytics (UA) and Google Analytics 4. We'll cover both, starting with the classic UA, which many sites still use, and then moving to the newer GA4.

How to Create a Dashboard in Universal Analytics (Step-by-Step)

Universal Analytics features a straightforward dashboard creator that uses a simple widget-based system. Here's how to build one from the ground up.

1. Navigate to the Dashboards Section

In the left-hand menu of your Universal Analytics property, go to Customization > Dashboards. Click the "Create" button.

2. Start with a Blank Canvas

You’ll see a modal window pop up. Select "Blank Canvas," give your dashboard a descriptive name like "E-commerce Store Overview," and click "Create Dashboard." This will give you an empty grid, ready for you to add your custom reports (called "widgets").

3. Add Your First Widget

Click the "+ Add Widget" button. This is where you bring your data to life. You'll need to define:

  • Widget Title: Give it a clear, descriptive name (e.g., "Total Revenue This Month").

  • Widget Type: For most e-commerce KPIs, you'll use "Standard." "Realtime" is for tracking live activity.

  • Visualization: Choose how you want to display the data. "Metric" shows one big number, "Timeline" is a line chart for trends, "Table" is great for lists (like top products), and "Pie" or "Bar" charts work for comparing categories.

  • Metric & Dimension: This is the most important part. A metric is a number (like Revenue, Transactions, or Sessions). A dimension is what you want to break that number down by (like Source, Country, or Product Name).

4. Must-Have Widgets for Your E-commerce Dashboard

With a 12-widget limit per dashboard in UA, you need to be selective. Here are fundamental widgets every e-commerce store should have, along with how to configure them:

1. Top-Level Sales Performance

What it tells you: The three most important numbers for your store's health at a single glance.

How to set it up: Create three separate widgets using the "Metric" visualization.

  • Widget 1 (Total Revenue): Metric = Revenue

  • Widget 2 (Total Sales): Metric = Transactions

  • Widget 3 (Average Order Value): Metric = Average Order Value

2. Revenue by Traffic Source

What it tells you: Which marketing channels are actually driving sales, helping you decide where to focus your time and budget.

How to set it up:

  • Type: Pie Chart or Table

  • Dimension: Source / Medium

  • Metric: Revenue

Pro Tip: Using a Table allows you to add a second metric like E-commerce Conversion Rate to see not just where revenue comes from, but which channels convert most efficiently.

3. Top Selling Products

What it tells you: Your most popular products right now. This is key for inventory management and marketing focus.

How to set it up:

  • Type: Table

  • Dimension: Product

  • Metrics: Product Revenue and Quantity

4. Device Performance Check

What it tells you: How users on different devices (desktop, mobile, tablet) are contributing to your bottom line. A low conversion rate on mobile could signal checkout or usability issues.

How to set it up:

  • Type: Table

  • Dimension: Device Category

  • Metrics: Revenue and E-commerce Conversion Rate

5. Sales Trend Over Time

What it tells you: The daily rhythm of your sales. You can spot weekly patterns, the impact of promotions, or performance dips that need investigating.

How to set it up:

  • Type: Timeline

  • Metric: Revenue

You can optionally choose a second metric like Sessions to compare traffic and revenue trends on the same chart.

How to Create a "Dashboard" in Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics 4 has a different philosophy. It doesn't have a rigid "Dashboard" feature like UA. Instead, it offers a more flexible system called "Reports" where you can create custom "Overview" reports that function similarly to a dashboard.

1. Go to the Library

In the left navigation menu, click on Reports, then at the very bottom, click on Library. This is the hub where all report collections are managed.

2. Create a New Overview Report

Inside the Library, click on "Create new report" and choose "Create overview report." An overview report is GA4's version of a dashboard - a collection of summary cards.

3. Add Summary Cards

You’ll start with a blank template. Click "+ Add cards" to begin adding your data visualizations. These are the equivalent of UA's widgets. You can choose from a gallery of pre-built cards or create your own custom ones by linking to detailed reports.

For an e-commerce dashboard, good summary cards to add include:

  • E-commerce purchases: A trendline of your sales over time.

  • Total revenue: The top-line sales number.

  • Conversions by Event name: To monitor purchase events alongside other conversions.

  • Items purchased: A list of your top-selling products.

  • Traffic acquisition: To see which channels are driving users.

4. Customize and Save

You can drag and drop the cards to rearrange them. Once you're happy with the layout, click "Save" and give your new report a name, like "E-commerce Sales Dashboard." To make it easily accessible, add it to one of your report collections in the Library so it appears in your main left-hand navigation.

Limitations to Keep in Mind

While powerful for a free tool, Google Analytics dashboards have inherent limitations:

  • Data Blending: You can only visualize data from Google Analytics. You can't pull in a "Cost" metric from your Facebook Ads account and plot it against your "Revenue" metric from GA to see your true ROI in one place.

  • Customization Rigidity: Both platforms, especially UA, give you limited control over the look and feel. Adjusting chart sizes or layouts can be clunky.

  • Complexity for Deeper Questions: Creating "widgets" or "cards" works for high-level numbers, but asking follow-up questions often requires leaving the dashboard and diving back into standard reports to apply filters and segments.

Final Thoughts

Building a custom e-commerce dashboard in Google Analytics is a powerful first step toward making data-driven decisions for your store. It pulls you out of the weeds of complex reports and gives you a single, clear view of the metrics that truly matter to your business's success.

At an earlier stage with our own marketing and sales data, we constantly faced the frustration of those same limitations. Sinking hours into manually building reports and still not being able to see data from Shopify, Facebook Ads, and Google Analytics in one place led us to build Graphed. We made it so you can connect all your data sources with a few clicks and then simply ask questions in plain English, like "Show me a dashboard of ad spend vs. revenue by campaign for the last 30 days," and instantly get a live dashboard that automatically updates for you. It simplifies the whole process, turning data analysis from a chore into a quick conversation.