People visit your website every day.
But how do you know if they performed an action that is important to the growth of your business?
You can use Google Analytics goals to measure critical actions on on your website and learn how effective your website is performing.
What is a goal in Google Analytics?
A Google Analytics goal is a way to measure important actions completed by your website visitors.
You can use goals to measure both macro conversions (made a purchase, requested a quote) and micro conversions (downloaded a white paper, watched a product video).
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.
Examples of goals include making a purchase (for an ecommerce site), completing a game level (for a mobile gaming app), or submitting a contact information form (for a marketing or lead generation site).
Examples of actions you might want to measure as goals:
- Requesting a Quote
- Scheduling an Appointment
- Downloading a White Paper
- Signing up for a Newsletter
- Watching a Video
- Making a Purchase
Why do I need to set up goals?
Conversion goals measure important actions people can take on your website.
Conversion Goals help you determine the effectiveness of your website traffic sources, content, and calls to action.
Goals will help you gauge how well your website is performing and can give you insights into what improvements you can make to drive more conversions.
Having properly configured goals allows Google Analytics to provide you with critical information, such as the number of conversions and the conversion rate for your site or app.
Without this information, it’s almost impossible to evaluate the effectiveness of your website and marketing campaigns.
Types of Goals
There are four main types of goals you can set up in Google Analytics.
- Destination
- Duration
- Pages/Screens per session
- Event
The chart below gives the official goal definitions from Google.
How do I set up a goal in Google Analytics?
In this short video you will learn how to set up a Destination Goal in Google Analytics.
It is one of the goals you will probably use most often.
Your Turn
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