We’re all about tracking things here at E-Power. One of the best ways to do that is by using Google Analytics. Let’s start from the beginning and discuss setting up Goals in Google Analytics.
What is a Goal in Google Analytics?
Goals are a way within Google Analytics to measure key actions, activities, leads, or conversions that take place on your website.
What Goals should I measure in Analytics?
What can you measure by setting up Google Analytics Goals? Well, the possibilities are almost endless, but some of the common goals measured include downloads, newsletter sign-ups, and contact forms. Each activity usually ends with some sort of “Thank You” page telling the visitor that they have completed an action on your site.
Setting up Goals
There are different ways to set up goals depending on the needs and complexity of your site. So, below are simple steps to setting up and creating a simple goal in Google Analytics.
1. Log into Google Analytics and click on the gear icon in the lower left corner.
2. Navigate to the “Goals” section under the “View” column on the far right.
3. Click the red “+New Goal” button.
4. Set up your goal
- Give your goal a descriptive name (newsletter sign-up, contact us form, etc.)
- Select an available Goal slot ID
- In this example, we’re setting up a goal that triggers a unique thank you page after a user completes a contact form. If you’re setting up this type of goal, select the “destination” radio button.
- Click “Continue”
- Enter the URL that users receive AFTER completing action for this goal. This is usually a thank you or confirmation page.
- For example, if after providing an email address and clicking “submit” on your newsletter sign-up form, users are taken to www.example.com/newsletter-thank-you.html then you would enter /newsletter-thank-you.html here.
- Not sure what your thank you page URL is? Just complete a test form on your site and copy the URL that you receive after submitting the form.
- If applicable, turn on the “Value” slider and enter a monetary value. Using a value here will allow you to more accurately measure ROI from your marketing efforts. If you simply want to track the number of goals completed, you can leave the value field turned “off”.
- Click “Save”
That’s it, you have completed setting up a basic goal within Google Analytics. Setting up more advanced goals using Event Tracking, Regular Expressions, or tracking purchases using ecommerce tracking can get a bit more complicated.
