You’re an adult: you know what goals are and why they are important.
But what are Google Analytics goals and how can they save you money and help build your digital business?
If you’re not using Google Analytics every day it can be a nightmare to navigate. So many paths, so many reports and so little time to learn them. However, setting up your Goals is one of the most important business metrics you can track. That’s because Goals are actions you want customers to take on your website…the bottom line KPI’s you define in your measurement plan.
Goals are the metrics that matter most as they contribute to your business’ growth. – Digital Marketing Institute
Sample goals set up for a private school:
In this example, we have goals already set up for:
- Leads (form submissions)
- Visitors of Key Pages (url goals)
- Page Depth (engagement goals)
Types of goals available with Google Analytics include:
- Destination goals
- Duration goals
- Event goal details
- Pages/Screens per session goals
Meet Mike, the Travel Blogger Adventure Seeker
This is Mike. He’s a busy dude. Like you, he has started to realize that digital marketing is a potential goldmine of opportunity for generating leads to his business.
For 2 years, Mike has made money by taking adventurers off the beaten path.
He isn’t some wall street hot shot with deep pockets. And he is almost always on the go, so a website that can build trust and be (mostly) automated is a big need for Mike. He plans to capture leads through phone calls, a free lead magnet that shares some of the hottest spots in the world, and by constantly sharing his group adventures on social media.
So to make sure his digital campaigns and website user experience is on point, he is going to set up Google Analytics.
What types of goals make sense for Mike?
The encompassing question being: “what types of goals make sense for you?”
Let’s answer this with questions.
The Power Behind Asking Questions
If you’re interested in becoming a more effective strategic thinker, get your determined paws on the 5 Elements of Effective Thinking.
The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking Are:
- Earth: Ground Your Thinking
- Fire: Ignite Insights Through Mistakes
- Water: See the Flow of Ideas
- The Quintessential Element: Engage Change
- Air: Create questions out of thin air.
Let’s focus on the element air and come up with some creative questions to help us figure out what Mike- or you- should track with Google Analytics Goals.
Questions for Mike (or your business)
What matters to Mike?
What assets does Mike have at his disposal?
Who is Mike’s target market?
How does Mike monetize?
How can people reach him and his solopreneur business?
How does Mike nurture potential leads?
Which social channels is Mike using to get traffic to his site?
What are the key pages on his website?
Who does mike want to remarket to?
And there’s plenty more. You could hire someone like me to perform this process with you or you could take ownership and the leap of asking creative questions to yourself.
In the fictitious example of Mike’s business, goals that could make sense for him are to a) set up call tracking, b) track key page views, c) remarket to visitors of his sales pages that stayed for longer than 2 minutes or scrolled all the way down his page, d) track downloads of his ebooks.
Once his goals are set up, he can view his data and ACT strategically.
Use Google Analytics Goals to Analyze and Optimize Traffic Sources
Want to see which traffic sources brought in the most leads/key pageviews/phone calls/etc?
You can use your reports to view exactly where people came from that hit your goals. Want more form submissions? Well if you find that 90% of your form submissions come from traffic acquired through Facebook….
Need I say more? Put your money where it’s profitable.
Resources On How to Set Up Goals
Great places to get started:
Google Analytics Goals: A Step by Step Guide
Google Analytics Goals Guide: How to Set Up And Track Your Bottom-Line KPI’s
The Definitive Guide to Google Analytics Goals
4 Google Analytics Goal Types That Are Critical To Your Business
For more advanced Google Analytics setup:
Google Analytics 102: How To Set Up Goals, Segments & Events in Google Analytics
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Happy hunting, digital ninjas.
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