Jul
Tracking Goals with Google Analytics
Much to my liking Google appears to have ‘opened up’ the Google Analytics registrations for Adwords users. Because I didn’t jump on the bandwagon early, I was shut out of the first wave of free accounts. Now I’ve been able to actually dive in and play around with this really nice analytics package. Say what you will, but this is hands down the best free solution out there, and definitely rivals most of the paid solutions. (beware clicktracks investors;)
In addition to implementing this on my sites, I also have a client who needed an analytics solution badly. I got them set up with a Google Analytics account, had them implement conversion tracking from the adwords account, viola, we’re all set.
This client had recently heeded my advice to create 4 different PPC landing pages themed around their major ad groups. In addition to our compulsary conversion tracking, Google analytics gives you the ability to set up ‘goal tracking’, which is essentially conversion tracking, but with the additional capability, through the analytics program, of tracking organic traffic, or email traffic, or any other source as it relates to the goals you set up.
So, in digging around the somewhat complex google analytics navigation, I got frustrated and google’d for a tutorial, or just some sort of clue how to set this up. Here’s what I found:
To implement goal tracking, follow these steps:
To set up your goals, Enter Goal Information:
1. Log in to your Google Analytics account and click Analytics Settings.
2. Find the profile for which you will be creating goals, and click Edit.
3. Select one of the 4 goal slots available for that profile and click Edit.
4. Enter the Goal URL. Reaching this page marks a successful conversion. For example, a registration confirmation page, a checkout complete page, or a thank you page.
5. Enter the Goal name as it should appear in your Google Analytics account.
6. Turn the goal On or Off. This selection decides whether Google Analytics should track this conversion goal at this time. Generally, you will want to set the Active Goal selection to On.
For further details on setting up funnel tracking, I suggest you go straight to the source and visit the google analytics support site.
If you get through that and you’re feeling really chirpy, you can take things to the next level and start your A/B split testing. These guys lay things out about as well as you’ll find.