Ensuring your business is on the right track toward growth, it’s essential to set goals – but perhaps what’s even more important is making sure you have systems in place that will help you track your progress toward achieving those goals. Thanks to Google Analytics, it’s relatively easy to set and follow goal progress directly from within your dashboard.
To create, edit, and share goals in Google Analytics, you must have Edit permission at the View level in the account you’re working on. If you do not, speak to your account administrator to have those enabled. At our SEO Company, our entire team is certified in Google Analytics; this is an excellent place to start if you want to understand, optimize and understand GA.
Step One: Creating a New Goal
Once you’ve signed into Google Analytics, click Admin, then choose the view you want. From there, look at the View column, and connect Goals.
To create a new goal, click +NEW GOAL. You can also choose to import a plan from the gallery or to click on an existing target to edit it. If the +NEW GOAL or Import options are not visible, you’ve already created the maximum 20 goals for the current view.
You have three options for creating goals:
- Use a template.
- Create a custom goal.
- Create a quick goal.
Using a Template to Create a New Goal
Choose a Template from the list, and click Next to complete the Goal setup. Templates are included within Google Analytics on an industry basis. You won’t see this option if your account does not have an industry category selected. Once you choose your industry, you can see a list of templates for goal creation.
Creating a Custom Goal
Choose Custom from the list of options, click Next Step, select the Type of Goal, and click Next to continue setting up your goal.
There are several types of goals:
- Destination goals
- Duration goals
- Event goals
- Pages/Screens per session
Destination goals treat a pageview or screen view as a conversion. Enter the screen name or page URL in the Destination field. Specify the match type as Equals to, Begins with, or Regular expression. If you want to track the success of your funnel, you’ll turn on the Funnel option, and for each step in the funnel, click +Add another Step, then enter a page name or an app screen name, as you did in the Destination field.
To measure user engagement, you’ll treat the session time as a conversion. Choose the hours, minutes, and seconds to set the minimum session time to consider a conversion. Any session that lasts longer than this will count as a conversion.
Event goals treat specific interactions within your site or app as the conversion. Use the Event Conditions to set up at least one event before creating this goal.
Pages/Screens per session goals also measure user engagement. You can specify a certain number of pages as a conversion, and when a user hits that threshold, it will count as a conversion.
Creating a Smart Goal
If your account meets all the necessary prerequisites, you will have the option to develop Smart Goals. You’ll follow the same steps to create a goal, choose Smart Goals from the options, and click “Next Step” to continue.
To be eligible to turn on Smart Goals, you must first link your Analytics to AdWords accounts. Your AdWords account must have sent 500 clicks to the selected Analytics view over 30 days before you can set up Smart Goals. If it falls below 250 clicks, Smart Goals will deactivate until it hits 500 clicks or more again. Your Reporting View must not show more than 10 million views within 30 days and must have data sharing turned on.
Goals & Monetary Values
Once you set up Goals in your account, you can assign monetary values to them to help you determine how much money each page or campaign is assisting your business earn. Every goal type, except for Smart Goals, allows you to sign a monetary value for each conversion. There are additional considerations for assigning monetary value when dealing with e-commerce events, such as when someone purchases a product. Leave the Goal Value blank if you’re tracking a transaction or purchase with the E-commerce Tracking code. The actual value of the sale will appear in the Revenue metric (not the Goal Value metric) and come from the E-commerce Tracking code in your shopping cart.
Verifying Your Goals
When you’re ready to test your goal, click Verify Goal. It will calculate the conversion rate for the last seven days based on data already in your account. It is not a projection of how well you can expect the goal to convert in the future.
