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Every website has a goal. With Google Analytics goals and conversion tracking, business owners can determine whether or not their website is fulfilling the brand’s objectives. Goals and event tracking reveal many important data points, including:
Defining and tracking goals on Google Analytics gives business owners a closer look into how well their website is performing and whether or not it is serving its purpose. Goals can be defined as important actions taken on a website that ultimately contribute to a business’ overarching objective. Making a purchase, submitting a contact form, or viewing an important page are all common examples of goals in Google Analytics. By tracking these goals, we’re further classifying data points that fulfill one or several business objectives.
Improving goal conversions can be difficult, but it starts with focusing on the intent and experience of the user. Luckily, Google Analytics' goals show how each user moves throughout the website so we can better optimize our web pages.
For example, Google Analytics can tell us when a web page is causing an increased bounce rate, meaning the page is not serving its user’s need or intent. To better serve the user, decrease bounce rates, and increase session duration times, we suggest customizing and personalizing your pages to cater to each of your audiences. According to Econsultancy, 94% of companies that personalized their websites experienced a rise in conversion rates.
An easy way to implement customization into a website is with a content replacement tool like GeoFli. GeoFli allows businesses to optimize content based on a visitor’s location, leading to a 30% increase in conversion rates. With hyper-focused content websites can show selective text, graphics, and videos to different demographics of the same audience. Businesses can also link specific website goals to GeoFli segments for accurate tracking.
Goals and events serve a similar purpose but are two different metrics within Google Analytics. While goals directly impact the success of the business, events are microinteractions that support or fuel these goals.
The best way to set up goals is to analyze the business’ primary objective. Then, consider the current service the website is providing. If a brand’s main objective is to sell t-shirts online, then the goal of the website should focus on taking the user to the completed purchase page. In the case of a nonprofit organization, the goal may focus on having the user complete volunteer sign-ups or contact forms. These goals support the nonprofit’s objective: to gain more volunteers and contacts for the organization.
Events are actions the user takes that support a goal. Examples of events include downloads, video plays, and button/link click. Events can be measured more than once per session. This may happen if a user decides to both watch a video and download a file. You can even set up certain events for page views as well. For example, when a user makes a purchase they would be routed to a thank you page, and that thank you page would be an event you can track as well.
Businessman's hand holding smart phone with a diagram of business strategy drawn on blackboard that represents the concepts of business growth.
URL destination goals track the number of visits for specific a url within a site. These types of goals are most commonly used when tracking pageviews for confirmation pages, thank you pages, and download pages after a certain action is completed. For example, after booking a hotel room, the user is taken to a confirmation page.
To ensure goal tracking is as accurate as possible, businesses should hide this URL. This means it is not visible by search engines. If the url is visible, then a user may accidentally stumble upon the page without making a purchase and Google Analytics will still count it as another completed goal.
User duration is usually tracked when a business owner would like to increase engagement on their site. To track this metric, account owners set a definitive session time and Google Analytics will report each user who meets this goal and even those who do not. It is best practice to select a time duration that only a few audience members will achieve. Selecting a time frame that most users will meet or surpass strips the data of its value.
This type of goal is great for measuring the best and worst-performing pages on a site. If a large amount of users are leaving the site after visiting a specific page, then the website owner knows that that page needs some work. Alternatively, if a page sends most of its traffic towards a form submission, purchase, etc. then the page is successfully fulfilling the business’ objectives.
Are events and goals on your website still a mystery? We can help. Contact the GeoFli team to learn more about how personalizing your website by user location can lead to increased goal completions and a better overall experience.
