What are Google Analytics goals?
Google Analytics (GA) offers us the possibility of measuring the conversions of our website through the objectives. The Google Analytics goals are hits or marks that occur when certain actions are performed that meet a certain condition
What are goals in Google Analytics for?
The objectives of Google Analytics serve fundamentally to measure the comportamiento y conversions that are made on our website. By establishing a series of conditions we can know what actions the user has carried out and in which parts of the web these objectives have been achieved.
Types of Google Analytics goals
Google Analytics offers a series of objectives that allow you to configure conversions.
The types of goals in Google Analytics are:
- Destination
- Duration
- Pages/screens per session
- Event
target type target
This is a simple goal to implement. Simply enter the url that we want to activate the achievement of this objective, so that when that url is reached, a "hit" will be recorded in the objectives section. This goal is very useful for measuring thank you pages, a widely used technique to record, for example, contacts by forms, so that every time a web form is sent we redirect to this thank you page.
Duration type objective
This type of goal is used to measure certain user time on page. It is not one of the most interesting objectives that Google Analytics offers, but we could use it to mark as a conversion when a user spends a certain amount of time on a page, for example, to know if users read all the content on that page.
Goal type pages/screens per session
It serves to know the usability of the web and user time. For example, we can record a conversion when the user visits more than 4 pages, in this way we will know if the web is well linked with interesting content for the user.
event type objective
Perhaps the most interesting objective of all that Google Analytics offers. With the event type goal we can measure user behaviors and actions, for example, when clicking on an element, when clicking on a link or on a certain button, when performing scroll actions on pages or even to measure contact by form when we do not want to use thank you page and it is make a new item visible on successful form submission.
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How to set goals in Google Analytics
Setting up the first three types of goals is very simple, just follow the steps on the interface and save the goal. To do this, click on the toothed wheel at the bottom of the panel and in the view column select Objectives.
Set destination target type
On this occasion we must select the type of custom objective, indicate the name of the objective, type of destination objective = “url”. Additionally we can give it a symbolic monetary value and create conversion funnels We will explain later.
Set Duration Type Goal
On this occasion we must enter the minimum time that a user must spend on the web to mark the objective as achieved.
Set target type pages/screens per session
Similarly, we must mark the number of pages a user must visit to mark the goal as achieved.
Configure target type events
In order to register events as targets we must create or launch these events. The best way to do this is by Google Tag Manager (GTM). The idea is to launch the event with GTM and capture it as a target in GA. The event is also captured automatically but we are interested in recording it as a target to be able to see more information in GA.
Event type goals have 4 courses that we must complete.
These fields are category, action, label y value, of which the first 3 are mandatory and the last one is optional.
The configuration of events can be done through an event in Google Tag Manager and it is essential that the values of these 4 fields be identical to view them later.
To create the event in GTM we must create a label Google Analytics and event type. We fill in the fields in the same way as in GA and we choose the activator that we want the event to fire, for example, click on a link or element, element visibility…
Activate conversion funnels in Google Analytics
Very interesting option for visualize the flow of conversions, from where user input occurs, where it is converted and on which pages user exits or leaks occur.
To do this we must activate the option “conversion funnels” when creating the goal and marking the steps to follow. For example, step number 1 could be the Home page, step 2, a specific page. Step 3 would not need to be configured because it would be the conversion page indicated in the objective. Once created in the conversion funnel, we can visualize these "steps" of the conversion in the side panel, conversions / Objectives / Conversion Funnel Chart.
How to Evaluate Goals in Google Analytics
There are two basic ways of assess that goals in Google Analytics, by volume and segmented.
When we talk about measuring targets by volume we are talking about total data and absolute. These occur when the action indicated in the objective is fulfilled and we can view it from the conversions section in the left side panel of the Analytics interface: conversions / Objectives / Summary. Additionally, on this screen we can select a segment to compare total data with particular data, for example, total users and users from organic traffic.
However, there is another more interesting possibility of evaluating the objectives and that is to face it web segments, for example, on which pages the achievement of objectives has occurred.
For this we must go to the section Behavior / site content / Landing Pages. Here is a list of pages with session metrics. If we look at the top of the data box, we have a dropdown with conversions. We only need to select the objective that we want to be able to see the number of conversions that have occurred on a certain page.
Conclusions on how to create goals in Analytics
As we have seen in the previous examples, Google Analytics offers us many possibilities to be able to analyze the conversion on our website. As we apply SEO and we are gaining traffic on our website, it is essential to analyze user behavior and if we are making conversions. The analysis and the subsequent conclusions that we draw will tell us how effective our strategy is and will mark the future strategy to follow.
Fonts
- https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1012040?hl=es-419#zippy=%2Csecciones-de-este-art%C3%ADculo
- https://support.google.com/tagmanager/answer/6106716?hl=es
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