Defining and Implementing Google Anaytics Goals and Funnels

Introduction to Google Analytics Goals and Funnels

Overview of Analytics Goals and Funnels

Objective: In this module you'll learn about goals and funnels. Defining site goals and tracking goal conversions is one of the best ways to assess how well your site meets its business objectives. You should always try to define at least one goal for a website.

A goal represents a website objective. A goal can be:

• a page viewed by the visitor once they have completed a desired action
• a specified number of pages viewed by the visitor on the website
• a session longer or shorter than a specific time range

There are three types of goals:
A URL Destination goal triggers a conversion when a visitor views the specified page on your site. A Time on Site goal triggers a conversion when a visitor spends more or less time on your site than the threshold you have specified. A Pages/Visit goal triggers a conversion when a visitor views more pages or fewer pages than the threshold you have specified.

For each goal that you define, you can also define a funnel. A funnel is the set of steps , or pages, that you expect visitors to visit on their way to complete the conversion. A sales checkout process is a good example of a funnel. And the page where the visitor enters credit card information is an example of one of the funnel steps. So, the goal page signals the end of the activity -- such as a "thank you" or "confirmation" page -- and the funnel steps are the pages that visitors encounter on their way to the goal.

Setting Up Analytics Goals and Funnels

To set up a goal and funnel, first go the Analytics Settings page and edit the profile for which you want to configure a goal. Once you've done that, please follow these steps:

1. Once you are on the Profile Settings page, look for the 'Conversion Goals and Funnel' section.
2. Select a goal and click 'Edit.' You can create up to four sets of five goals for each profile, or 20 goals total. Next, select the type of goal you want to define: URL Destination, Time on Site, or Page/Visit. For a URL Destination goal, enter the URL of the goal page. You don't have to enter the entire URL. You can simply enter the URL inclusive of 'http://' or the request URI - that's what comes after the domain or hostname. So, if the complete URL is http://www.googlestore.com/confirmation.php, you can add the entire URL (including 'http://') or just enter /confirmation.php, which is much simpler. Make sure that the URL you enter corresponds to a page that the visitor will only see once they complete the conversion activity. So, pick something like the 'Thank You' page or a confirmation page for your goal.
3. You can also enter a name for the goal. If you enter 'Completed Order' for a goal name, it will appear in your conversion reports.
4. Defining a funnel is optional. To define your funnel steps, you add the URLs of the pages leading up to the goal URL. Just as with goals, you don't have to enter the entire URL of a funnel step; just the request URI is fine.
5. Provide a name for each step in the funnel. If you enter a name like 'Select gift card ' for Step 1, the names you enter will appear in your reports.
6. The match type defines how Google Analytics identifies a goal or funnel step. You have three choices for the Match Type option.
   
   Head Match is the default. It indicates that the URL of the page visited must match what you enter for the Goal URL, but if there is any additional data at the end of their URL then the goal will still be counted. For example, some websites append a product ID or a visitor ID or some other parameter to the end of the URL. Head Match will ignore these. Another example is to have every page in a subdirectory to be counted as a goal. You could enter the subdirectory as the goal and select Head Match.
   
   Exact Match means that the URL of the page visited must exactly match what you enter for the Goal URL. In contrast to Head Match, which can be used to match every page in a subdirectory, Exact Match can only be used to match one single page. For example, Exact Match does not match the second pageview, '/offer1/signup.html?query=hats,' because of the extra query parameter at the end.
   
   Regular Expression Match gives you the most flexibility. For example, if you want to count any sign-up page as a goal, and sign-up pages can occur in various subdirectories, you can create a regular expression that will match any sign-up page in any subdirectory. Regular Expressions will be covered in a later module.
7. Check 'Case Sensitive' if you want the URLs you entered into your goal and funnel to exactly match the capitalization of visited URLs. To define a Time on Site goal, select Time on Site as the goal type. Next, select "Greater than" or "Less than" and enter an amount of time, for example 15 minutes. We'll discuss goal value in the next step.
   To define a Pages per Visit goal, select Pages per Visit as the goal type. Next, select "Greater than", "Equal to", or "Less than" and enter a number of pages.Threshold goals are useful for measuring site engagement, whereas URL Destination goals are best for measuring how frequently a specific activity has been completed. If your objective is for visitors to view as much content as possible, you might set a Pages per Visit goal. Or, if you have a customer support site and your objective is for visitors to get the information they need in as short a time as possible, you might set a Time on Site goal with a "Less than" condition.
8. The 'Goal Value' field allows you to specify a monetary value for goal. You should only do this for non e-commerce goals. By setting a goal value, you make it possible for Google Analytics to calculate metrics like average per-visit-value and ROI. These metrics will help you measure the monetary value of a non e-commerce site. Think about how much each goal conversion is worth to your business. So, for example, if your sales team can close sales on 10% of the people who request to be contacted via your site, and your average transaction is $500, you might assign $50 or 10% of $500 to your 'Contact Me' goal. Again, to avoid inflating revenue results, you should only provide values for non e-commerce goals.