How to Set up Goals in Google Analytics

Table of contents:

• What is Google Analytics
• Google Analytics goals
• Which Goals are Available in Google Analytics?
  • Destination
  • Duration
  • Pages/Screens per Session
  • Event
• How to Act on Goals
  • Goal Value
  • Reporting and Analysis
  • Limitations of Goals
• Setting Up Goals in Google Analytics
• Goal Setting Drives Sales

Google Analytics is a comprehensive website suite that will give you a wide variety of information you can use to succeed in the goals you have for your website, including advertising, marketing impact, demographic information, and more. By using Google Analytics to set specific goals and milestones for your content, you will almost immediately see results! Seeing which goals are available in Google Analytics, can help you move the direction of your website into a better area for you to capitalize on. This article will show you the importance of Google Analytics goals for your website and how to implement them to ensure success.

What is Google Analytics

Setting up goals in Google Analytics is important, but first, it’s important to understand what Google Analytics is precisely. Google Analytics, simply, is a free service from Google that allows admins to view a variety of website analytics for use in a multitude of ways. Google Analytics allows anyone a glimpse at any relevant information they might be interested in for their website and allows them to categorize and analyze it in any way they wish. It is an indispensable tool for webmasters looking to optimize their content!

Google Analytics goals

Google Analytics Goals are a metric that is tracked by Google Analytics that gives your website something to aim for. These goals are specific actions that are completed by the users on your website that are tracked by Google Analytics. These measures how well your website is doing what it is supposed to be doing – if you have a blog and people constantly read it, your goals are succeeding! Other examples of successful goals could be making a purchase for an e-commerce site or submitting information to an advertising database. Anything that is done by users that you want them to do on your site is technically a goal you can track.

The difficult part here, of course, is thinking about what precisely is the most important thing to track. When choosing from which goals are available in Google Analytics, you must be precise and focused on the outcome. How to set up goals in Google Analytics becomes much easier when you know what you should be focusing on.

Which Goals are Available in Google Analytics?

Of all the possible data that can be collected in Google Analytics, goals – broadly speaking – fall into one of four categories. These four categories make up the majority of relevant data to website engagement and retainment information and can inform result schema that is beneficial to the result you have in mind. Using these goal types is a great way to sort and act on relevant information! Once you have all the relevant criteria available, setting up goals in Google Analytics becomes easy!

Destination

Destination goals are for getting your user-base to navigate to a specific location. For example, these can include registration pages, specific content pages, app screens, or anywhere else that is relevant to your online presence. Tracking this metric is useful if you require your user-base to end up in clear places.

Duration

Duration goals track how long users spend in a specific area of your site, or even your site as a whole. Session length is tracked with this goal which informs you as to how quickly people leave your business or how quickly they navigate to a different location. Setting up goals in Google Analytics that track this is a major factor in bounce rates!

Pages/Screens per Session

This goal tracks how many different page loads any given user will have at your site and many times these pages are accessed by all users. They are useful goals in spotting just which content is being accessed and how much of it is being loaded by anyone at a given time.

Event

Event goals are when users perform a certain action that you are interested in. Everything from social recommendations to video plays and ad clicks gets put into this category. As you might imagine, tracking event engagement for your website is absolutely essential in optimizing your content for a wider audience!

How to Act on Goals

It isn’t enough to simply learn how to set up goals in Google Analytics, you need to understand how to properly act upon them as well. Choosing a goal and acting upon it requires that users also set the value of the goals they are planning on track, what the goal limits are, and checking on the goal for conversion after the fact.

Goal Value

Determining the value of a goal means that you are converting goals directly into a dollar amount per goal action accomplished. This gives you the option of assigning a specific monetary denomination to any conversion, giving you an accurate dollar total for the completion of your goals. This will eventually be displayed as Goal Value.

Determining the dollar amount from goals might be a challenging prospect for those who don’t fully understand the transactions involved with their site, but for those who do understand, the value of a visual representation of sales is of inestimable value.

A simple way to go about calculating value is as follows: if you are able to collect 10% more customers for your product, and your average transaction is $25, you could set the goal value for individual customers at $2.50. This gives an observable, objective metric that will help drive sales.

Reporting and Analysis

The entire point for goals is to aid in research and analysis for your website, so reporting on goals becomes the essence of their functionality. With Google Analytics, you are able to see goal completion rates, conversion rates, and more through the ‘Conversions > goals’ reports tab. Through the use of effective goal-setting and best practices for goals, you will have all the data you need to act. Here are some practices you should keep in mind when setting up goals in Google Analytics:

• Use intuitive names and categorization methods. Being clear, concise, and organized will help you analyze data much more easily.
• Assigning goal values is not essential, but it is highly recommended. Consistent data – from dollar value to consistent scale or weighting – will streamline the entire analytics process.
• Keep track of edits and changes to your goals. Goals may change often depending on what you are tracking (and attempting to track) so having a clear history is important.

Limitations of Goals

Goals are powerful, but they have their limitations. Keep these points in mind when attempting to create a list of goals for your site:

• There is a limit of 20 goals per reporting view. If you wish to track more than 20 goals per view, you must create an additional view or edit a pre-existing goal to further align with your current needs.
• Goals are not retroactive. They only begin to function after the goal itself has been created. This means that the sooner you set up goals the sooner you can start getting the results you are looking for!
• You cannot delete the goals you have created, but you can stop an active goal from continuing.
• Goal sets and goal IDs cannot be changed after being created. If you wish to change the goal name and type, however, this is possible if you want to reuse one.

Setting Up Goals in Google Analytics

While not an overly complicated process, it is important to understand how to set up goals using Google Analytics. By following the link to Google’s help page and by using our guide listed below, you’ll be able to set up goal tracking immediately!

Step 1

Enter your Google Analytics dashboard and click the Admin tab at the top of the screen.

Step 2

Under View on the right-hand side of the Admin Dashboard screen, you will see ‘View.’ In View, click ‘Goals.’

Step 3

Once you have selected goals, you will be taken to a new analytics Dashboard page with the goals section prominently displayed in the middle. Click +NEW GOAL to continue to the goal creation process.

Step 4

From here, you will be prompted to select the type of goal you wish to create. Choose the most applicable goal for your purposes!

Goal Setting Drives Sales

Google Analytics’ goal-setting feature is an absolutely indispensable resource for webmasters looking to drive more conversions and revenue. They are an essential aspect of tracking the health of your site and making sure you are paying attention to the health of your website. Continual vigilance is essential to ongoing SEO optimization and goal-driven metrics are one powerful tool to assist you in the process. By mastering Google Analytics goals, you create a foundation for long-term success!