Renowned for their timeless colour palettes and eco-conscious practices, Little Greene are an independent British paint and paper manufacturer with a rich history.

With records dating back to 1773, the Little Greene Dye Works on the outskirts of Manchester is one of England’s most ancient industrial sites for the making of paints and dye solutions. Now, they’ve broken into multiple markets with online stores and physical showrooms in Germany, France, the Netherlands, and the US to name a few.

While they have been around for centuries, it hasn’t prevented them from remaining innovative and moving with the times. Beyond aesthetics, their dedication to preserving heritage, producing high-quality paint and paper, and embracing environmentally friendly manufacturing processes sets them apart as industry leaders. 

Little Greene needed to optimise the reporting of their online presence while ensuring compliance with GDPR regulations on users’ data. Their transition to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) posed a multifaceted challenge, demanding a smooth migration to a new analytics platform that aligned with their commitment to data accuracy and user privacy while improving their insights beyond basic tracking events, especially for an eCommerce. 

Recognising the importance of data protection, the paint and paper company needed to ensure compliance with GDPR and align with privacy regulations in order to safeguard customers’ trust and privacy. This needed to be an ongoing compliance with the regulations, which would ensure Little Greene were consistently and continually compliant. 

Our analytics team worked hard setting up Little Greene’s GA4 properties across each of their domains. We personalised GA4 properties for every platform, tailoring the approach to fit the requirements of each territory and domain. 

We fine-tuned tracking details to ensure video engagement, downloads and outbound clicks were all captured, and we ensured reporting on scroll depth up to 90%. All of this formed part of the standard tracking in order to gain a good insight into user engagement metrics.

Our team worked to adjust tags to optimise form submissions, and we reviewed the Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) event data that was being captured with a view to slim down. 

We added some new events, such as tracking stockist searches, capturing chat interactions, and some user actions, including logins, account creations, and primary navigation clicks. 

To tie it all together, we linked Google Console and Google Ads accounts to each platform, updated exclusion filters, and optimised triggers for actions like form submissions. This overhaul supercharged Little Greene's analytics capabilities but also set the stage for savvy decision-making across their portfolio.

Our setup of GA4 didn’t end with a standard set up of user engagement metrics. Our team also extended it to a migration of their eCommerce events, ensuring they were set up in the new GA4 format. 

As with all migrations from Universal Analytics (UA) to GA4, we acknowledged the importance of maintaining product data continuity and recommended that the website continued to populate product data in the dataLayer in the UA format. To bridge the disparity between UA and GA4, our team developed custom scripts and JavaScript variable. These scripts efficiently intercepted data, transmitted it to GA4 in the appropriate new format ensuring a smooth transition to the new analytics platform.

During the migration process, we identified potential challenges with the transaction splitter custom script, particularly on the French site. Our team investigated, exploring fixes and alnterative approaches with a focus on optimising product data utilisation.

New enhancements included the addition of payment and shipping information, offering a more comprehensive view of transaction details. To refine user interactions, we collaborated with our development team to address issues related to critical events such as "Add to Cart" and "Begin Checkout," ensuring these actions fired accurately.

Expanding beyond traditional eCommerce metrics, we introduced new events such as "View Cart" to capture user interactions more comprehensively. Additionally, we explored opportunities to implement promotions effectively, aligning with Little Greene's business objectives.

This laid the foundation for further granular insights that empower Little Greene in understanding and optimising their customers' digital journey.