Tracking Conversions With GA Goals

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By: Ceci Dadisman

In: Marketing & Communications, Metrics & Analytics

In the previous post in this series, we talked about why it is a good idea to track incremental conversions on your website. Now, we’ll take a look at exactly how to set those conversion actions up in Google Analytics.

Setting Up Goals

The easiest way to do this (and without any coding) is to use goals. As per Google:

Goals measure how well your site or app fulfills your target objectives. A goal represents a completed activity, called a conversion, that contributes to the success of your business.

We’re going to set up goals that will track when someone reaches certain pages on your website that mark your identified incremental conversions. You will need Admin access to your Google Analytics to do this.

1. Go to Admin > View > Goals and click the red + New Goal button at the top. That will bring you here:

Under Goal Setup, choose Custom at the bottom and then click Continue.

2. Choose a name for your goal that will be easy to identify when viewing the data in Google Analytics. Then, choose Destination as the goal type.

3. Enter the URL of the page that marks your incremental conversion. 

Click Save and that’s it! You have now created a goal.

This goal will track every time someone views that URL on your website.

How To View Goals

You can view your goal activity in a number of places in Google Analytics. There is a dedicated area in Conversions > Goals.

One of my favorite reports to view in terms of goal completions is Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/Medium. This report shows you where traffic to your website is coming from. You can also view that data in terms of goal completion to see what traffic source is bringing in the most conversions.

In this example, we can see that paid Google advertising leads to the most conversions for this particular goal.

Now that you have these goals set up, you will start to see data populate in your Google Analytics account within 24-48 hours.

In the next post in this series, we’ll talk about how to track these metrics and make more informed marketing decisions using them.

Ceci Dadisman
Author
Ceci Dadisman
Ceci Dadisman is a marketing professional with more than 15 years of experience creating effective communications campaigns utilizing innovative, forward thinking methods. She is nationally recognized as a leader in digital marketing and specializes in multichannel communications campaigns. A frequent public speaker, Ceci’s recent and upcoming engagements feature national conference appearances at NTEN, Museums and the Web, National Arts Marketing Project, Arts Midwest, American Alliance of Museums, OPERA America, Midwest Museums Association, and Chorus America in addition to many other local and regional events. Known for her easy-going and vernacular style, she creates open learning environments with an emphasis on information sharing and useful takeaways. She is a member of the National Arts Marketing Project Advisory Committee and the West Virginia University College of Creative Arts Visiting Committee, and is a mentor in West Virginia University’s Creative Consultant program. She also teaches the arts marketing course at West Virginia University’s College of Creative Arts and is on the faculty of Chorus America’s Chorus Management Institute. Ceci was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA and graduated from West Virginia University’s College of Creative Arts. She currently lives in Cleveland, Ohio.
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