Configuring Google Analytics Goals
for Desktop, Tablet and Mobile
Krista LaRiviere
CoFounder & CEO
gShiftLabs.com | @gShiftLabs | facebook.com/gShiftLabs | [email protected]
Configuring Google Analytics Goals
for Desktop, Tablet and Mobile
Table of Contents
Why Google Analytics Goals are Important
3
Defining Goals
3
Setting Up Goals in Google Analytics
4
Goal Types6
Choosing a Template or Custom Goal
7
Setting up Events & Custom Goals in Google Analytics
7
The Importance of Goal Values
11
Check out our blog post on
the importance of setting up
Goals in Google Analytics:
Read the blog post
Event Goals11
Recording Data11
Limits12
Viewing Your Goals in gShift12
Conversion Dashboards12
On-Site Page Conversions13
Download the gShift Google
Analytics Goals Workbook to
get even more benefits from
this Guide:
Get the Workbook
Keyword Conversions13
Conversions By Channel14
Content Performance Modules - Conversions
14
Social Channel Conversions15
Reporting16
Conclusion17
2
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Getting Started
Why Google Analytics Goals are Important
If you have Google Analytics connected to your website, great job! However, if you are only tracking Sessions and
Pageviews, you are missing out on a lot of valuable information important to understanding the effectiveness of
your website and its ability to meet your business objectives. As important as website visits are, what your visitors
are actually doing on your site is of greater value to your business.
When we think of Google Analytics Goals, we typically think of tracking product purchases on e-commerce sites,
but this is just a fraction of what can be tracked on your website and in social networks. Goals can be used to
track the number of pages visited during a session, document downloads, web form submissions, video views
and hyperlink clicks - just to name a few useful applications. The completion of these goals are then reported on
as Conversions within Google Analytics and gShift. Through gShift you can in turn quickly tie goals to keywords,
content, channels and/or social media networks in order to identify, which are the most effective at delivering
those conversions enabling you to better focus your attention, time and arrive at an ROI for your marketing efforts.
As important as website visits are,
what your visitors are actually doing on your site
is of greater value to your business.
Defining Goals
Goals are useful for monitoring visitor engagement as well as more concrete calls-to-action you may have on
your site. As noted, each time a user completes a Goal it is measured as a Conversion. In Google Analytics you
can create up to 20 Goals (4 sets of 5), so take some time to review your site in detail and determine what you
want your site visitors to “do” or simply how you want to measure visitor engagement?
When a visitor completes a Goal, a Conversion is recorded in the Goals section in Google Analytics. Your Goals can
be assigned values, which can be monetary, to help you understand how much each Conversion is worth to your
business. For instance, what value might you place on someone filling in a “Request for Quote” or “Contact Us”
form?
These values can help you measure how well your site fulfills your target objectives.
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Setting up Goals in Google Analytics
Goals can be set up in the ‘Admin’ panel using four different types, which are detailed below.
1.
Goals are set in the View section. To locate a view, click ‘Admin’.
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Setting up Goals in Google Analytics
2.
Select an Account and a View.
Click ‘Goals’, then ‘Create a Goal’.
3.
Click on the ‘New Goal’ Button
4.
Choose an applicable Template
(Revenue, Inquiry, Acquisition,
Engagement) or select
Custom
(see below for setting up Custom
Goals). Google Analytics will
designate the Goal Type based
on the Template chosen.
5.
Configure the Template based on your specific website calls-to-action.
6.
Click on “Description” and name your Goal so it will be easily recognizable in your
Google Analytics or gShift reporting.
7.
Confirm your Goal details, and you’re done!
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Goal Types
There are four types of Goals in Google Analytics.
One of the most important decisions you have to make during the setup process is selecting a Goal Type. When
you set up your Goals, you have four types to choose from: Destination, Duration, Pages/Screen and Event. Each
type is used to measure different kinds of content and calls to action.
Type
Description
Example
Destination
A specific location loads.
‘Thank You For Registering’ web page
or app screen.
Duration
A visitor session that lasts a specific
amount of time or longer.
10 minutes or longer spent on a support
site.
Pages/Screens per
session
A user views a specific number of pages
or screens.
5 pages or screens have been loaded.
Event
An action defined as an Event is
triggered.
Social recommendation, video play,
or ad click.
The four Goal types can be used to track different types of actions you may want to measure. If you are using a
Template (provided by Google Analytics), the recommended type will be suggested. If you are using a Custom
Goal, select the type which best relates to the action you need to track. However, you will need to think about the
additional considerations for Destination and Event Goals.
Destination Goals - Choose the match type as Equals to, Begins with, or Regular expression.
Duration - This displays the time spent on site during a session.
Pages/Screens per Session - How many pages/screens have been viewed per session.
Event Goals - You must first set up at least one Event to use this kind of Goal.
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Choosing a Template or a Custom Goal
When you select “Choose a Template” you will have setup suggestions. These Templates are made to help you set
actionable Goals, which meet your business objectives. The Goal categories are: Revenue, Acquisition, Inquiry and
Engagement. These are the larger business objectives that prompt the Goal Templates. You can edit your Template
field before saving a Goal if you need to.
If you do not see any Templates, they may be disabled, if you have not selected an industry within your account.
To see the Templates relevant to your business, edit your property and select your Industry Category and Save.
You also have the option of choosing Custom to complete the setup process without any suggestions.
Setting Up Events & Custom Goals in Google Analytics
The first three Goal types are relatively self-explanatory, but at the same time, limited in what you are able to
track. What if you do not have a Thank You page following a form submission, as many sites do not? What if you
simply want to track whether or not someone clicks on a specific link on your website or if they have downloaded
a document like a PDF? What if you’d like to know who looked at your new product video? In order to monitor
these types of Goals, you will need to set up Google Analytics Events. Below are the basic steps involved in creating Events, which can then be attached to Goals. You will require someone familiar with basic HTML to help with
the setup and configuration of Events on your website.
1.
Tag each link with an Event Code
To track an Event (i.e. a download, a link exit, form submittal, etc.), you will need to add an ‘On Click’ tag to the
link itself. By doing so, you can track any action, which requires users to click on your content, rather than visit a
specific web page.
This is an example of what the ‘On Click’ tag looks like. The only elements that change are the names in red:
Category, Action and Label.
onClick=” ga(‘send’, ‘Category’, ‘Action’, ‘Label’,Value, false]);”
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Setting Up Events & Custom Goals in Google Analytics
2.
Add Custom Elements To Event Code Tag
When adding the ‘On Click’ tag to your links, you will need to fill in this information to help identify the Event in
Google Analytics. Be specific, yet simple. Consider what these Events do when triggered. Keep the following in
mind when naming each Event:
Category: The name you supply for the group of objects you want to track. We recommend
using something like “Registration”, “Subscribe” or “Social Media”. You may have multiple
Events, which fall into a category.
Action: Used to further define the type of user interaction. In the ‘Social Media’ category for
example, the Action label would be something like “Follow”.
Label: (optional) Highly recommended for effective Conversion identification. We recommend
using this to more specifically describe the Event. Again in the “Social Media” category this
could be used to designate the specific social network i.e. Facebook or Twitter.
Value: (optional) Used to assign a numerical value to an Event. This may be a monetary value
or a value relative to an agreed upon scale.
Non-interaction: (optional) A Boolean, when set to true, indicates that the event hit will not
be used in bounce-rate calculation.
3.
Incorporate these parameters into your HTML link.
From the above example, the ‘On Click’ tag would look like this when added to your HTML:
<a href=”www.ExampleLinkBeingTracked.com” onClick=”ga(‘set’, ‘nonInteraction’, true);ga(‘send’, ‘event’, {
eventCategory: ‘Social Media’, eventAction: ‘Follow’, eventLabel: ‘Twitter’});”>Follow us on Twitter!</a>
Google Analytics is now tracking the link associated with “Follow us on Twitter” as an Event so you can see how
many times visitors to your website are clicking on this link. This data can be found within Analytics under Reporting > Content > Events. GA will now tell you anytime an Event is completed i.e. Converted. If you want to
track keywords leading to an Event in addition to the number of times an Event was triggered, you’ll have to set
the Event up as a Goal Conversion (see Step 4).
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Setting Up Events & Custom Goals in Google Analytics
4.
Go to the Goals page under Admin > Goals > New Goal
You have the option to choose ‘Template’ or ‘Custom’. When choosing a Template, Google Analytics will designate
the appropriate goal type suited to the template you have chosen.
5.
Choose ‘Custom’ to add an Event
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Setting Up Events & Custom Goals in Google Analytics
6.
Name your Goal
We will display this information in gShift, it’s important to be specific and/or use a descriptive name. Select the
Goal Type as Event.
7.
Add the below names to the corresponding fields.
For example:
• Category (Equals to) Social Media
• Label (Equals to) Twitter
• Action (Equals to) Follow Us
• Value is optional.
8.
Click on ‘Create the Goal’. You’re done!
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The Importance of Goal Values
Goal Values require ample consideration during set up. If you are not sure about the value your website is delivering or if you are looking to get more insight into what is converting well, you can assign a value to each of your
Goals.
You can assign a numerical value (i.e. , a range out of 100) or monetary amount for any Goal Value during the
setup process.
There are special considerations when setting up an Event Goal or a Goal that involves Ecommerce tracking.
You can set the Goal Value for an Event type Goal in one of two ways:
• Use the Event Value. This will be what is defined in your Event tracking code as the value.
If you have not defined an Event value, the Goal Value will be empty. Change the Goal Value
option to YES in the setup for this configuration.
• Use the Goal Value. This works like setting a Value for other types of Goals. Keep the Goal
Value option to NO in the setup for this configuration, and manually set the value.
Recording Data
As soon as you create a Goal, it starts recording data. You can pause a Goal by changing the Recording Status to
OFF. The data will not be recorded for a Goal when turned OFF, but you can resume recording by turning it back to
the ON position. No data will be collected while the Goal is set to OFF.
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Limits
When you are creating Goals, remember these are limited to 20 per reporting view. If you would like to track more
than 20 Goals, create an additional view for the account or edit an existing Goal that is no longer needed. Note:
Once a goal has been created it cannot be deleted as this effects the overall integrity of Google Analytics’ data
collection. So you do want to take time in planning which goals are most appropriate to create.
Viewing your Goals in
You will need to set up your Goals in your Google Analytics account before any conversion data will appear in
gShift. gShift has many dashboards, which display your Conversions in relation to channels or behaviour leading
to those Conversions.
Conversion Dashboards in
On the Overview dashboard, you can see your overall Conversions for your site for the last 7, 30 or 90 Days along
with whether or not they have risen or fallen over the same prior period of time.
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On-Site Page Conversions in
To get the most out of gShift, you need to be following content – specifically On-Site Pages. You will subsequently be able see the number of Conversions associated with any given page of the website, along with the keywords
and/or channels which drove traffic to those pages.
Keyword Conversions in
In Keywords > Analytics you can view the completed Conversions for each keyword.
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Conversions by Channel in
Conversions by Channel data (as defined by Google Analytics i.e. Direct, Paid, Social, Email, Referral, Display,
Other) is available both within the On-Site Pages>Analytics Panel and the Content Performance Module.
On-Site Pages > Analytics - Conversions
Content Performance Module - Conversions in
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Social Channel Conversions in
gShift further breaks down conversions by specific Social Channels in the Social Metrics dashboard.
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Reporting in
You can report on and analyze Conversion and Conversion Rates within the gShift Web Presence Report both
over time and broken down by Google Analytics Channels, Keywords and/or Social channels as you can via
gShift dashboards.
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Now Go Reach Your Goals!
Now that you know how to create Goals, you can apply these to your Google Analytics account profiles so they
may be displayed in gShift to help you make more actionable decisions about your web presence optimization
or content marketing strategies. If your site or content does not lend itself to explicit goals and conversions, try
starting with some basic engagement goals to see how your website visitors are interacting with your content and
what channels drive the most engaged audiences.
Contact your gShift Client Success Manager if you require additional guidance or support in identifying, setting
up, configuring or optimizing your goals to meet your business requirements.
And remember...
As important as website visits are,
what your visitors are actually doing on your site
is of greater value to your business.
Download the Google Analytics Goals Workbook
to help you work through developing your own goals!
Get the Workbook
17
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Contact Us to learn more about the gShift Web Presence Analytics Platform and request a demo.
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About gShift Labs
gShift’s industry leading web presence analytics platform helps Brand and Agency teams efficiently understand and
improve on the impact, engagement and resulting sales of a company’s content across its web presence. gShift’s
software infrastructure has been crawling and collecting web presence data since 2009. More than 10,000 brands in
22 countries benefit from gShift’s insight data and software as they optimize their time to improve the discoverability
and the sharing of their content. gShift recently placed 29th on the PROFIT HOT 50 of Canada’s Top New Growth
Companies.
For more information, please contact us at 1-866-743-5960 or [email protected].
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