Want to know if your website is fulfilling your target objectives?
If so, then you should monitor Google Analytics goals.
What We’ll Cover:
- What is Google Analytics goal?
- Event goals
- URL destination goals
- Duration goals
- Page per visit goals
- Frequently Asked Questions
Although GA offers plenty of “out of the box” metrics, you’ll likely need to set up one or more goals to ensure that your visitors are taking the actions you want them to take.
Of course, there are countless goals you can set up. But which ones are the best?
In this article, we’ll go over goal examples and share four of the most important types of goals in Google Analytics.
What Is a Google Analytics Goal?
Before we get into specific goals you should follow, let’s go over the concept of Google Analytics goals.
Basically, goals are actions that people take on your website.
More specifically, they’re actions that you want people to take on your website. When people take those actions, they’re called conversions.
For example, if you want someone to make a purchase on your ecommerce site, that’s a goal.
Similarly, if you want people to sign up for your email distribution list, that’s also a goal example.
Fortunately, Google makes it easy to track those kinds of actions. That will give you some insight as to how well your site encourages people to follow your lead.
If you want to set up a goal, start by logging in to Google Analytics. Click on ADMIN in the lower, left-hand corner of the screen. It’s the gear icon.
In the screen that appears, you’ll see three columns. On the right-hand column, look for Goals and click on it.
Then, click on +NEW GOAL at the top of the table that appears. In the next screen, you can create one of the pre-selected goals or select Custom at the bottom.
Note: for the purposes of this tutorial, you’ll always use Custom.
You’ll have to name your goal and specify a goal type. There are four types of goals in Google Analytics:
- A destination, such as a specific URL on your site
- A duration or the amount of time people spend on your site
- A number of pages (or screens) people visit per session
- An event, such as playing a video
Next, you’ll have to specify supplemental info. That will vary depending on which type of goal in Google Analytics that you specify.
Tracking Google Analytics Goals Helps You Measure Key Metrics (& Get Your Goal Value)
You track goals to get certain metrics. These metrics help to inform you about your digital marketing strategy‘s performance, also known as key performance indicators (KPIs). Here are the main metrics to look for in Google Analytics:
- Interactions Per Visit
- Signups
- New Accounts
- Bounce Rates
- White Paper or E-Book Downloads
- Return Visitor Conversion
- Goal Value
I want to reiterate the importance of the goal value metric here. For those of you who don’t know what goal value is: You set a goal, and Google Analytics assigns a monetary value to that goal’s completion.
Goal Values Image Source: WakeFly
For example, say you’ve set a business goal of getting 500 newsletter signups. Once you complete that goal, goal value combines the number of signups with other metrics (like percentage of leads that result in a purchase and revenue). That means each newsletter signup is worth a certain amount of money.
The most common way to use goal values is to discern a dollar amount for leads.
With Google Analytics, you don’t have to manually derive goal value to determine ROI. This makes it easier to keep all parties in the loop and figure out who’s winning, and where.
In short, goal value means tracking certain goals in Google Analytics is super important. Remember to update your goal values regularly.
Now that you know a little bit about the basics of goals, let’s take a look at some Google Analytics goals examples you should set up and follow. We’re going to go through these:
- Event Goals
- URL Destination Goals
- Duration Goals
- Pages Per Visit Goals
1. Examples of Goals in Google Analytics #1: Event Goals
The first kind of goals you should track are arguably the trickiest: event goals.
Event Goals Image Source: Bounteous
If you are wondering what’s the difference between goals vs events Google Analytics, we will cover the now.
- Goals track actions that affect the revenue generated by your website.
- Events track visitor behaviors on your website that don’t necessarily relate to your specific pages.
So, what happens when you combine goals and events to optimize your website?
Event goals track interactions with your content.
Here are a few types of event goals:
- File downloads
- Time spent watching videos
- Widget usage
Basically, any design element that your visitors can interact with can be tracked with an event. This just goes to show how pivotal content is in the buyer’s journey.
Before you can set up event goals, though, you first need to define events. Fortunately, Google offers clear instructions on how to do that.
Keep in mind, each event has four components:
- Category
- Action
- Label
- Value
The first two components are mandatory. The last two are optional.
Use the Category component to group related elements. For example, you might have one category called “Videos.” That will follow all videos on your website.
Of course, you can create subcategories within categories for event goal tracking as well. For example, you might have one category called “Instructional Videos” and another called “Funny Videos.”
The Action component identifies the kind of action that the user takes on the element. “Play” is an example of an action that would be applied to the “Videos” category.
Additionally, “Stop” and “Pause” are valid actions for videos.
The Label component allows you to provide additional info about the element associated with the event.
Let’s take a closer look at a few other Google Analytics goals examples for events.
Let’s say you have a video called “Instructional Video 1.” You can use that title as the label.
The Value component, unlike the other components, is numerical. It only tracks integers.
So, for example, if you want to track the load time for a video, you’d set an event with the following specifications:
- Category: Videos
- Action: Video Load Time
- Label: Instructional Video 1
- Value: Download Time
Then, after several people have watched your instructional video, your report will show both the total and average value for download time.
To set up an event goal, create a custom event as described in the opening section. Then, select “Event” as the goal type.
When you click the Continue button, Google Analytics will ask you to input the Category, Action, Label, and Value specific to the event goal.
Just make sure those names match exactly with your event, otherwise your analytics will be off.
Also, keep in mind that your event goal will register as complete only if all of the event components match the values you specify.
Event goal tracking can be tricky because it requires the use of JavaScript. However, once you’ve learned how to do it, you can track some very specific and meaningful events on your website.
Then, you can use that info to improve your marketing. That’s the difference between conventional goals vs events Google Analytics.
2. Goal Types in Google Analytics #2: URL Destination Goals
Diving deeper into the realm of Google Analytics goals examples, let’s study the use of URL destination goals and how to track them.
There are probably some “money” pages on your website that you want to track. Setting up a URL destination goal makes that easy to do.
Sure, you can sift through the Google Analytics Behavior report. But that can get tedious and time-consuming.
To track a URL goal, create a custom goal as explained in the opening section. Then, select “Destination” as the goal type.
For the destination URL, enter only that portion of the URL that’s beyond your domain name.
For example, if your full destination URL is https://mysite.com/my-money-page, only enter “/my-money-page” in the destination URL field.
If you want to, you can add a monetary value to that page. That’s a good idea if it’s a page that confirms somebody just bought something on your site.
You also have the option to create a funnel for the goal. That’s a series of steps that you expect people to take before they reach your goal.
In this case, “a series of steps” means a number of web pages that they’ve visited first.
For example, somebody might visit your landing page. When they decide to buy what you’re selling, they visit your checkout page. When they’ve completed the checkout, they see your “Thank You” page, which is identified with the destination goal you’re defining.
It’s a great idea to set up a funnel so that you can see its “weak points.” For example, if you notice an unusually large number of people dropping off at your checkout page, that’s indication that it’s user-hostile. Take a look at it on different devices.
Destination goals is a Google Analytics goal example that gives you an outstanding opportunity to track visits to important pages on your site and follow your visitors throughout the entire sales process.
3. Examples of Goals in Google Analytics #3: Duration Goals
Want to know how many people stay on your site for three minutes or more? If so, set up a duration goal.
Why is that important? Because dwell time matters in SEO. In a sense, this type of goal can be seen as, sort of an SEO goals example for Google Analytics.
If people reach your site from the SERPs and bounce away almost immediately, Google will pay attention to that.
In fact, Google will interpret that to mean that your site doesn’t have what those folks are looking for. You’ll likely go down in the rankings.
That’s why you should set up a duration goal.
To do that, start by creating a custom goal as defined in the opening section. Then, select Duration as the goal type.
On the next screen, specify the duration. Google Analytics enables you to define it in terms of hours, minutes, and seconds.
As with destination goals, you also have the option to specify a monetary value for your duration goal.
Keep in mind: Google Analytics isn’t very good at tracking durations. That’s because it compares timestamps between two different page visits on the same site.
Let’s dive a little deeper into these Google Analytics goals examples.
Let’s say somebody visits your homepage, reads through it, and then clicks on your blog page. Google Analytics will record a timestamp when the person visited your homepage. It will record another timestamp when the person zips over to your blog.
The difference between those two timestamps is the time the person spent on the homepage.
But it’s not that easy. What if the person left your homepage open and went to get some lunch? What if that same person left your site before visiting another page on it?
Those kinds of events can skew your statistics.
Still, duration goals give you the opportunity to look for trends on your site. If you see some negative trends, you might have to do some redesigning.
4. Goal Types in Google Analytics #4: Pages Per Visit Goals
Finally, you should track pages per visit. This is a Google Analytics goals example that is quite important.
Why? Because that’s a number you want to be as high as possible. When people are visiting multiple pages per session, that’s an indication that you have a very healthy site that encourages people to stay longer and browse around.
Pages Per Visit Goals Tracking
On the other hand, if people are leaving your site after visiting just one page, then it’s not very “sticky.” You need to update it so that people are more inclined to hang around.
To set up a pages per visit goal, start by creating a custom goal as explained in the opening section. Then, select “Pages/Screens per Session” as the goal type.
On the next page, you’ll have the option to specify your page count threshold. In other words, people will have to visit more than the number of pages you specify before the goal is reached.
You also have the option to specify a value for that goal if you want to do so. It’s not too often that you’ll associate a number of page visits with a monetary value, though.
FAQs for Google Analytics Goals
1. Are there any limits to GA goals?
Yes. They are limited to 20 per reporting view. You will need to create another view in order to track additional goals.
2. Can I use GA goals to track past data?
No. They can only be used to track data that occurs on your website after you create the goal. You have to set up the goals in your GA account before you will start start to see results.
3. Can I delete a GA goal?
No. However, you can stop recording data in a goal. You can’t delete goals, though
Wrapping It Up
There you have it: four examples of Google Analytics goals that you should be tracking in order to get the most out of your website.
Now that you know a little bit more about the different types of goals in Google Analytics and the best ones to track, why not head over to GA right now and set up some goals? And don’t forget the goal value, so you can firm up your ROI and have some solid data to bring to the Zoom call.
Then, check your reports after a while to determine if you need to make any improvements to further optimize your website.
