Set Up Goals in Google Analytics
What are “Goals” in Google Analytics?
Why do Analytics Goals matter for my business?
How do I set up my Goals?
Picture Nadia’s Neckwear, which sells scarves, ties, and the all-important cravat to users around the world.
Nadia’s social media game is strong enough to drive people to her website. But once they get there, many of these people leave before buying anything. It’s a real bummer.
Feeling all tied up in knots, Nadia wants to know more about what these people are doing when they reach her site, so she can turn them from browsers to buyers.
Nadia’s heard that Google Analytics can provide the type of data she desires.
But what can she actually learn about her customers?
You may know that Analytics can help you learn about who’s visiting your site. Goals, though, can help you understand what visitors do when they arrive.
See, Goals in Analytics help you measure how many people take a specific action on your website. They can be set for big things, like completed purchases, or smaller stuff, like newsletter signups or document downloads.
Let’s say Nadia wants to dig into why people aren’t digging her site enough to complete a purchase there. She can use Goals in Analytics to find out what pages they click on and how much time they spend on those pages.
Nadia can also use Goals to see the point at which visitors click away from her site, giving her a sense of what pages entice them and what pages just hang around without providing benefit, like a scarf left lying lonely on a coat rack.
The percentage of visitors who complete a particular Goal makes up that Goal’s “conversion rate.” Analyzing the conversion rate can help you make more informed decisions about marketing your business or presenting content on your website.
So how do you actually set up Goals and view their conversion rates? It only takes a few clicks to uncover the wonder of numbers.
First, decide what you want to achieve for your business. Whether you go big or small, the more specific your Goals, the easier it is for Analytics to help you measure them and take action.
Next, visit your account to start a new Goal. There are templates for different types of Goals, such as reaching new customers (acquisition), driving purchases (revenue), or highlighting specific areas of your site (engagement).
If you don’t think that any of the templates are in line with what you want to do, don’t worry. You can create custom Goals that fit your needs like some sort of achievement-oriented glove.
Once you’ve chosen a template, you can specify which of 4 types of Goals works for you: “Events,” “Pages or Screens,” “Destination,” or “Duration.”
Events Goals let you track specific actions on your site. Perhaps you’ve made a blog post that includes a video. If you want to know if people click the video’s play button, creating an Event Goal can generate that data.
But say, instead, you want to know if users are going through your site or clicking out as soon as they click in. A Pages and Screens Goal is a good fit. It measures how many pages a user views.
Want to see how long users spend on your site, no matter what page they go to? Try a Duration Goal. To see how many visitors buy something on your site, you could view the traffic to your purchase confirmation page using a Destination Goal.
TIP
You can see the data your Goals generate in Analytics’ Reporting view, and in Audience and Acquisition reports.
Still, conversion rate data can sometimes seem as relatable as a llama on a bicycle. Assigning a value to your Goals can help.
Consider if you can easily correlate a cash value to one of your Goals – it might make it easier to see how to use your conversion rates to adjust your business plans.
Remember Nadia, our cravat connoisseur? She knows that people who sign up for her Neckwear Newsletter consistently buy $50 worth of ties in a year.
Using a Destination Goal, Nadia can figure out how many people are signing up for her informative emails. And if she flips the “Value” toggle on for this Goal, she can see this conversion rate as a dollar amount.
Nadia can then use this information to help measure her marketing. If it costs her more money to drive newsletter signups than the newsletter brings in, she might want to rethink her business plan.
With Analytics, you can set up to 20 Goals. And if any are Destination Goals, you can get even more info by using Analytics’ “funnels” feature.
Let’s get back to Nadia. She knows people aren’t purchasing, but she doesn’t know where on her website she’s losing visitors. A funnel visualization can help her see if a specific page on her site is inconveniencing her users.
To set up the funnel, Nadia has to list out each page her users visit when making a purchase on her website, from the product page to the purchase confirmation. She then has to enter the URLs for each into Analytics.
Eventually, the funnel visualizations report will show Nadia how users behave on each page. If she sees any page’s activity drop off, she can look into changing that page to help drive scarf sales sky-high.
DO THIS NOW
Using Goals in Analytics can help you focus on the data that most impacts your business. Ready to see if you have what you need to set up a Goal for yourself?
If you’re participating in the course, go to the next section to access your self assessment.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Setting Goals in Analytics can give you insights into visitors' experiences on your website.
You can generate data on which pages get the most traffic, whether users take specific actions, or how long people view each page
Creating Funnel Visualizations let's you see where users might be losing interest in your website.