• Home
  • Google Analytics
    • Customizations
    • For Ecommerce
  • Speaking
  • About
    • About Me
    • Contact Me
    • Disclaimer and Privacy Policy

Analytics Talk

Digital Analytics for Business

You are here: Home / Tracking / All About Google Analytics Goals

All About Google Analytics Goals

Posted: July 7, 2007 105 Comments

Goal!Google Analytics Goals are a way to measure conversions on your website. A conversion occurs when a visitor does something you want them to do. This could be completing some type of high value process or viewing a specific page on your website.

Setting up goals is one of the most important steps when configuring Google Analytics. Without goals, there is no easy way to measure conversions. If you’re unfamiliar with conversion, or the related metric conversion rate, please take a moment to read about why both of these metrics matter. In general, counting the number of conversions and tracking the conversions rate is a good way to measure the success of your website.

During this post I’m only going to cover how goals work and how to set them up. I’ll discuss how to use goals in my next post.

What’s A Goal (Technical)?

At its core, a goal is just a pageview. It’s could be a specific page on your website that you want the visitor to see or the page that is displayed when a visitor has completed a process. A goal is literally defined by the URL of said page. As GA processes site data, it increments the goal counter each time a pageview for the ‘goal’ page is found. It should be noted that if the goal page is found multiple times in a single visit then goal counter is only incremented once.

I’ll explain a little bit more about how goals work, at a technical level, at the end of this post. There’s a few things I need to cover before we get into the nitty-gritty tech stuff.

Creating A Goal

There are multiple ways to define a goal. The method you choose depends on the complexity of your website. The easiest way to create a goal is to copy the URL of your goal page from a browser into the Goal URL text field. So, if the process ends with http://www.cutroni.com/thankyou.php, enter http://www.cutroni.com/thankyou.php in the Goal URL field. Here’s another example. If the URL of the goal page is http://www.cutroni.com/thankyou.php?submit=true then enter http://www.cutroni.com/thankyou.php?submit=true into the Goal UL field.

Goal Settings

A goal can also be defined using a regular expression. Rather than enter an exact URL in the Goal URL field you can enter a regular expression. This is particularly helpful if the website is dynamic. If the goal page contains a unique identifier then you can’t copy and paste a URL into the Goal URL field. Every goal URL will be different. You need to use a regular expression for the Goal URL. I’ll discuss this below in the Additional Settings section.

Goal Name
When defining a goal you also need to give the goal a name. There’s nothing special here. The Goal name will be used to identify the goal in the Google Analytics reports. Don’t use anything too long, it can make the reports difficult to read.

Activate Goal
The Activate Goal setting is an on-off switch. Switching the setting to ‘Off’ will stop tracking for the goal. Why would you want to turn a goal off? Google Analytics will calculate an overall website conversion rate using all of the goals you define for the site. If you create a goal that is temporary, say for a specific campaign, then it could artificially skew the overall site conversion rate if you leave the goal on after the campaign, ends.

Additional Settings

Each goal has an Additional Settings section that can help configuration in unique situations. It’s located at the bottom of the page under the Funnel settings. By the way, you do not need to create a funnel when you create a goal. Defining a funnel is optional.

Additional Settings

Case Sensitive
The Case sensitive setting can be used with websites that have mixed-case URLs. So, if your Goal URL value is case sensitive then click the Yes radio button. However, profile filters can affect this setting. I’ll explain more at the end of this post.

Match Type
Match!
The Match Type setting is a powerful setting that can aid in goal tracking. For example, if each goal page contains a unique customer identifier then it will be impossible to paste a single URL into the Goal URL field without the use of the more sophisticated match types. Google Analytics has three different match types that can be used for Goals and Funnels.

Exact Match
When you choose Exact Match the value in the Goal URL field must exactly match the URL of the goal page displayed in the location bar of the visitor’s browser. This is the setting you want to choose if you copy the URL from the browser and paste it into the Goal URL field. If your website uses a unique identifier in the goal URL (like a visitor ID number or an order ID number) do NOT use an Exact Match. Use a Head Match or a Regular Expression.

Head Match
The Head Match is like a light-weight regular expression. You should use a head match when a small part of the goal URL differs from one visitor to another. With a head match, if the value entered into the Goal URL matches any part of the URL in the visitor’s browser then the goal will be counted. The Head Match will match both path data and query string variables.

For example, if there is a unique identifier in the goal URL then you can use the head match to define the goal. Let’s say the Goal URL for a visitor is http://www.cutroni.com/thanks.html?submit=true&id=12345. The id query string parameter is a unique identifier that will change from one visitor to the next. So, I could use a HEad Match and enter the following into the Goal URL: http://www.cutroni.com/thanks.html?submit=true. Because the Goal URL matches PART of the actual URL for the goal page, GA will count this goal.

Regular Expression
This setting defines a goal using a regular expression. If the regular expression entered into the Goal URL matches any part of the goal URL then the goal counter is incremented. Using a regular expression is particularly useful because it let’s ‘wrap up’ goal tracking so you track multiple goals in a single goal. You can track multiple goals using a single goal because a regular expression can match multiple URLs. For example, let’s say you want to create a goal that tracks and PDF file download. You could enter \.pdf into the Goal URL field. I actually wrote about using regular expressions to get more out of goals last year.

Goal Value
Money

The final option in the Additional Settings section is Goal Value. Use this field to monetize non-e-commerce goals. For example, if each Contact Form submitted by a user is worth $100, enter 100 in the Goal Value field. Google Analytics will use 100 to calculate return on investment (ROI) and other revenue based calculations. If e-commerce tracking is active for a profile, and you would like to use e-commerce data for your goals, simply leave the goal value field blank. Google Analytics will pull in the e-commerce data.

One thing to note is that the Additional Settings are applied to both the values in the Goal URL and Funnel steps. I know I’m not covering funnels in this post, but this is a common mistake. It is not possible to use an Exact Match for your funnel steps and a Regular Expression for the Goal URL.

Tips, Gotchas & More

Let’s dig a bit deeper and learn how GA actually counts goals. During data processing the value you use to define a goal is compared to the Request URI value. You remember the Request URI, right? It’s part of the URL (everything after the .com, .net or .org). I know this seems strange especially because a goal can be defined by a complete URL, but this is how the data processing works.

It is important to understand that the Request URI is used during goal processing because if you create a filter that modifies the Request URI then it might break your goals.

Here’s an example. Let’s say the Request URI, in its original form, is /pages/html/index.html. You decide to modify this value using an advanced filter and it becomes /pages/index.html. If you define a goal using /pages/html/index.html then the goal will not work. The reason is that the Request URI (/pages/index.html), which was changed by the advanced filter, no longer matches the value entered as a goal (/pages/html/index.html).

How about another example? If you force the case of the Request URI to lowercase, and then define a filter using all uppercase characters AND specify that the goal is case sensitive, then the goal will not work. Get it?

I know this seems strange, especially when most people use an exact match to define their goals. But that’s the way goals work, honest! Don’t be alarmed by this. Using an Exact Match is a perfectly fine way to define a goal.

Here’s a tip. You can also define goals based on data created by urchinTracker(). Remember, if you pass a value to urchinTracker() then that data becomes a pageview in Google Analytics. These pageviews can then be defined as goals. You can read more about urchinTracker() in this series of posts. I’m using this technique to track RSS subscriptions on my blog.

And finally… A great way to debug goals is to use the Top Content report. Remember, a goal is just a pageview. If GA is reporting 0 goals, then check the top content report. Does the goal page appear in the Top Content report? If it’s missing, then there is probably an issue with your page tags. But, if the goal page is present in the Top Content report then there is probably an issue with your goal setup.

Wow… that’s a long post. Does it all make sense? Leave a comment and let me know!

Filed Under: Tracking Tagged With: goals, google-analytics, setup, Tips

Comments

  1. Tucana says

    July 9, 2007 at 10:04 am

    Very good explanation on how GA goal works! Thank you! :)

    Only a question… the only way to count with a goal the “pageviews” instead of the “unique pageviews” is to pass values to urchinTracker()?
    And this configuration can crete conflict to the natural counter of pageviews and unique pageviews on that pages?

    Thanks,
    Tucana

    Reply
  2. Justin says

    July 9, 2007 at 10:21 am

    Hi Tucana,

    A goal can be defined by a virtual pageview that is created using urchinTracker(). For example, when you click on the RSS subscription icons I call urchinTracker and create a pageview for /blog/rss. I then created a goal for RSS subscription and entered /blog/rss into the goal URL.

    The number of goals should match (or be close to) the number of Unique Pageviews for a page. Google Analytics counts the number of goals based on Unique Pageviews, not pageviews. This can’t be changed.

    Sorry if that was confusing.

    Justin

    Reply
  3. Gleb Arshinov says

    July 9, 2007 at 3:25 pm

    Great article, really looking forward to later installments on funnel etc. It would be good to cover some edge cases: Creating a goal is not retroactive. Disabling a goal does not clear past , that disabling a goal does not completely clear past “achievements”, so if you repurpose the goal for something new later, the “achievements” come back. There are probably more, but those were the ones we encountered (and there are definitely more with funnels).

    Reply
  4. Justin says

    July 9, 2007 at 9:21 pm

    Hi Gleb,

    Thanks for adding to the discussion. You make a great point. Creating a goal, or changing a goal, has no impact on historical data. That’s a great point. Many people forget that changes made to a GA configuration do not alter the historical data.

    Thanks for reading and sharing!

    Justin

    Reply
  5. Tucana says

    July 10, 2007 at 4:03 am

    Hi Justin,

    thanks for the reply, I was confused because I don’t have read your old post (august 2006) on GA Goals, now I have understand better the virtual pages created calling urchinTracker().

    Finally there is no way to track with GA Goals the total pageviews on a specific page of a site?

    For example a site that is lead generator wants to track all the emails generated (pageviews of the confirmation page), not only the unique emails (unique pageviews of the confirmation page).

    Thanks,
    Tucana

    Reply
  6. Justin says

    July 11, 2007 at 7:16 am

    Tucana,

    Correct. The number of coal conversions should match the number of unique pageviews for the goal page and not the total number of pageviews.

    Hope that helps.

    Justin

    Reply
  7. Chris says

    July 17, 2007 at 2:39 pm

    Your wrote:

    “If e-commerce tracking is active for a profile, and you would like to use e-commerce data for your goals, simply leave the goal value field blank. Google Analytics will pull in the e-commerce data.”

    I have been recently told by my Google rep that with v2 of GA, this no longer works, but I am just having trouble believing it. Do you have the dynamic goal value working?

    Reply
  8. Justin says

    July 17, 2007 at 9:26 pm

    Hey Chris,

    The new GA should use the e-commerce value for the goal if the goal value is left blank. I have not heard anything contrary to this.

    I’m not exactly sure I know what you mean by dynamic goal value. The only way a goal can have a dynamic value is if the e-commerce tracking code is used.

    Hope that helps and thanks for reading.

    Justin

    Reply
  9. Chris says

    July 18, 2007 at 8:59 am

    By dynamic goal value, I mean if you leave it blank, it grabs whatever the value of the ecommerce transaction is (when the ecommerce tracking code is used). I can’t get this to work (although I believe we had it working in GA v1) and was wondering if you have a profile that is currently working by grabbing the values of your ecommerce transactions and attributing that to the goal.

    I have left the field blank, installed ecommerce tracking and I am not getting any values. When I contact my adwords rep, he investigated and told me that the value can now only be static…which I am having trouble believing (accepting ;))…

    Reply
  10. Justin says

    July 18, 2007 at 4:27 pm

    Hey Chris,

    Thanks for the clarification. GA should be using e-commerce value for the goal. The functionality in V2 should be the same. It does appear that this is currently broken, but I’ll check.

    I’ve got some e-commerce profiles that are collecting e-commerce data but not applying it to the goal, which is wrong.

    Thanks for the heads up and I’ll see what I can do.

    Justin

    Reply
  11. George says

    July 24, 2007 at 7:39 am

    Hey guys, do i need to put the Analytics code on all the pages in the funnel i’m creating?

    Reply
  12. brian says

    August 20, 2007 at 9:13 pm

    Hey, what a great post! But I have one problem with google analytics right now and that is, how do you remove goals? I didn’t have it propertly installed, and now they are annoying to see!

    Any suggestions? thanks

    Reply
  13. Justin says

    August 21, 2007 at 7:41 am

    Hi Brian,

    Hmmm, I’m not quite sure what you mean. Are you asking how to remove old goal data from the reports? If so, you can’t. Once the data has been processed and is in the reports it can not be removed.

    Or, are you asking how to turn a goal off? In that case you can do two things. First, you can use the ‘Activate Goal’ setting. It’s located under the Goal Name field. Or you can simply erase the value for Goal Name and Goal URL.

    Hope that helps and thanks for reading!

    Justin

    Reply
  14. Michael says

    August 21, 2007 at 1:21 pm

    Justin,

    Do you have any new information about this?

    —–

    Hey Chris,

    Thanks for the clarification. GA should be using e-commerce value for the goal. The functionality in V2 should be the same. It does appear that this is currently broken, but I’ll check.

    I’ve got some e-commerce profiles that are collecting e-commerce data but not applying it to the goal, which is wrong.

    Thanks for the heads up and I’ll see what I can do.

    Justin

    ——

    I am still having a problem getting this to work.

    Thanks,
    –Mike

    Reply
  15. Justin says

    August 22, 2007 at 9:21 pm

    Hi Mike,

    Sorry, things have been a bit crazy so I haven’t followed up.

    Justin

    Reply
  16. Alex says

    August 24, 2007 at 5:31 am

    Hi Justin,

    I’m trying to set up a 3 step goal funnel, but the third step is showing 100% conversion. Looking at examples of other funnels, I can’t see what we’re doing wrong.

    Does it have any impact if the url for the final 2 steps is https?

    Thanks,
    Alex

    Reply
  17. Justin says

    August 24, 2007 at 8:35 am

    Hi Alex,

    To answer your second question, no. It does not matter if the second step is on a secure server.

    Are you using a regular expression or head match to define the page that is showing 100% conversion? If so, it could be that the expression is matching too many URLs. I would also take the time to walk through the process on your site. Maybe the page is actually coming up more than you expect.

    Hope that helps.

    Justin

    Reply
  18. Simon Luijk says

    September 12, 2007 at 1:36 am

    Hi Justin

    I am also having problems getting the ecommerce value to the a goal value. I’m on a search now, I’ll post anything I find.

    Simon

    Reply
  19. Simon says

    September 12, 2007 at 8:02 am

    So this is the responce I got from Google.

    Thank you for your message regarding the Goal Value. Please know that it is not possible to use actual e-commerce values in your goals. I apologize for the confusion. To view the e-commerce data for your goals, please visit the E-commerce section in your account.

    Reply
  20. Justin says

    September 13, 2007 at 10:05 pm

    Hi Simon,

    Thanks for doing some leg work and contacting Google. I checked some data and you’re right. E-commerce values are not being used as conversion values. I’ll need to follow up with my contacts on the support team for additional information. I know that initially the e-commerce data was supposed to be used as the goal value.

    Thanks for your help.

    Justin

    Reply
  21. Peter Koning says

    September 26, 2007 at 3:51 pm

    Hi Justin,
    I have 2 websites where people can subscribe to my newsletter. It’s the same list and the “thank you page” (on Site A) is shown whether they subscribe from Site A or Site B.

    I’d like to be able to use GA to measure the conversion rate for each site. I’d rather not have a second thankyou page as I keep updating it with special offers etc.

    I’ve searched the groups, GA help, and your post but this multi-site to 1 goal tracking is not so clearly explained.

    It’s not clear to me how to set this up? I have a profile set up for each site but not sure what tracking code to use on the thankyou page and what else I need to do?

    -Peter

    Reply
  22. Justin says

    October 6, 2007 at 9:59 pm

    Hi Peter,

    Here’s what I would try…

    First, if you have multiple domains then you need to use the cross-domain tracking feature in GA. The reason is that you want to originating source for each conversion.

    To determine which site the visitor was on prior to the thank you page you can use the reverse goal path report.

    Good luck,

    Justin

    Reply
  23. Eric Purwaka says

    November 5, 2007 at 1:16 pm

    Hi Justin,

    I have some question regarding setting up funnels.

    I have set up a goal where the user purchase the item from my website and there are various ways to get to the goals. Here are few simplified examples:

    I.
    1. Page where the item is listed
    2. Click on buy item from the list page
    3. Confirmation page
    4. Thank you page (Goal)

    II.
    1. Page where the item is listed
    2. View the details of the item (new page)
    3. Click on buy item from the detail page
    4. Confirmation page
    5. Thank you page (Goal)

    Is there a way to setup only one goal for this particular goal?

    Will this funnel tracks both cases above,
    Step 1: List Page
    Step 2: Detail Page
    Step 3: Confirmation Page
    Goal : Thank you page
    ?

    Thanks

    Eric

    Reply
  24. Justin says

    November 17, 2007 at 8:00 am

    Hey Eric,

    It’s really hard to ‘lengthen’ a funnel in Google analytics. This is complicated bythe fact tht GA has some funny behavior when it comes to funnels. Here’s what I mean. If a visitor starts a funnel, and completes a funnel, but does not hit all of the pages inthe funnel, GA will ‘backfill’ the funnel to make it appear as though they did hit all the pages. Why, I’m not sure. It will still show all the entrances and exits as well.

    So, knowing this, you could create a funnel for the longest path on your site. Then use it to see where people are entering and leaving. I would also suggest using the navigation summary for the various pages in the funnel to gain more insight into the exact movement between funnel pages.

    Hope that helps and thanks so much for reading.

    Justin

    Reply
  25. rami gur says

    December 6, 2007 at 3:43 am

    HI,
    I have a problem; I want to track the funnel people use to order from my site. They can come to a hotel page (I have two deferent hotel page, one a regular one and one as a landing page from Addwords)and go directly to the order form or go through the shopping cart first.
    Since in both cases the first page is the same and the goal page is the same, I get the same results (as you explained). Any idea how to solve that? Thanks

    Reply
  26. Justin Cutroni says

    December 9, 2007 at 10:00 pm

    Hi Rami,

    You need to change the pageview that is registered for either the goal page or the initial page. Essentially you need to differentiate the pageviews. Check out this post on using urchinTracker() to differentiate pageviews.

    Good luck,

    Justin

    Reply
  27. Jacob says

    December 14, 2007 at 1:25 pm

    Wow, I’m very impressed with your knowledge off many apects of site analytics, thanks again! Question….

    In Google Analytics, for the Traffic Source report for Source/Medium, i was testing new links and I’m getting 0 as the number of visits for one of the links. Have you seen this before? The other links report fine.

    myspace / banner 0 0.00% 0.00% $0.00

    Thank you

    Reply
  28. Justin Cutroni says

    December 14, 2007 at 9:00 pm

    Hi Jacob,

    Thanks for the comment, I’m glad you find the blog useful.

    If you’re seeing ‘myspace / banner’ in the reports then you should have data. I would double check that the tracking cookies are set correctly. Try clicking on the banner and, once you’re on your site, check your cookies. You should see one named _utmz and you should see data about the banner.

    Hope that helps and thanks again for reading.

    Justin

    Reply
  29. Tyson says

    January 3, 2008 at 2:45 pm

    Justin,

    If I have two distinct conversion paths that lead to the same thank you page, is there any way to track the goals separately by using filters? I can’t edit the GA code since it’s on a 3rd party shopping cart.

    Thanks.
    Tyson

    Reply
  30. Christophe says

    January 9, 2008 at 6:06 pm

    Hi Justin,

    Any idea what can be causing a pretty big discrepancy in the goal conversion numbers on the goals “Overview” page against the numbers in the “Funnel Visualization” page?

    Let me explain further: I have a goal in place on my website with 5 steps. On Google Analytics, the overview page says I have 114 conversions, but when I go on the Funnel visualization page I realize I have only 52 total conversions (“52 visitors finished”).
    Can it be because “required step” should not be checked? I have no clue about such a discrepancy between numbers.

    Any idea?

    Thanks!

    Reply
  31. Justin Cutroni says

    January 11, 2008 at 11:22 pm

    Tyson,

    There is only one way to diferentiate the conversions, and that’s using the funnel visualization report.

    Try using the ‘required Step’ setting in the funnel visualization report. This setting mandates that the conversion process include a specific step. If it does not, then the funnel visualization report will not count a conversions.

    Christophe,

    Your problem is related to the required step setting. Check out what Tyson is trying to do.

    Hope that helps and thanks for reading,

    Justin

    Reply
  32. cherilyn says

    January 29, 2008 at 8:33 pm

    I am a new user to google analytics and have just set a goal and filters; however, I found that the URL address that I had typed in are incorrect. Any idea how to go back and revise it?

    Any help would be much appreciated!

    Reply
  33. Bronwen says

    February 5, 2008 at 6:27 am

    Hi
    Is there a way to view the visitor source for those visitors that have completed a goal? ie if 100 people have signed up to my newsletter (and the thank you page is the goal) I would like to know how they got to the site ie which search terms they used in google, etc.

    I know I can see the funnel and previous pages using reverse path, but that doesn’t seem to tell me how they got to the site in the first place and I want to know which are my most valuable organic search terms.
    Many thanks
    Bronwen

    Reply
  34. Justin Cutroni says

    June 24, 2008 at 11:18 pm

    Hi Cherilyn,

    There is no way to change the historical data in Google Analytics. Once the data has been processed and is in GA’s database it can never be modified. You can still modify the URL used for the goal, but it will only affect future data, not historical data.

    Thanks for reading,

    Justin

    Reply
  35. Justin Cutroni says

    June 25, 2008 at 6:59 am

    Bronwen,

    When looking at any report, just click on the Goal Conversion tab to view conversions. So, if you are looking at keyword data, and you click on the Goal Conversion tab, then GA will show you the conversions for each keyword.

    Good luck with your analysis!

    Justin

    Reply
  36. Joseph says

    July 3, 2008 at 7:35 am

    What would the potential difference between the number of unique pageviews and analytics goals be due to?

    Reply
  37. Justin Cutroni says

    July 3, 2008 at 8:30 am

    Hi Joseph,

    If the number of unique PV is not matching the number of conversions you may want to check how the goal is defined. There may be an issue with the regular expression used or head match that is used.

    Hope that puts you on the right track.

    Justin

    Reply
  38. Burton Kent says

    July 10, 2008 at 12:24 pm

    I’m tracking a download page as a goal, however, sometimes users visit to download more than once. Is there any way to only measure unique URLs for a goal? Every user has a different receipt #, so if I can track just the unique pages matching a regex, it would do the trick.

    Hope that makes sense.

    Reply
  39. Justin Cutroni says

    July 10, 2008 at 7:37 pm

    Hi Kent,

    Google will only track one conversion per visit. So you shouldn’t have to worry about multiple conversions for the same goal. This also applies if you are defining your goal as a reg ex, which will also solve your second issue.

    Hope that helps and thanks for reading the blog.

    Justin

    Reply
  40. Carla Christensen says

    July 18, 2008 at 3:58 pm

    We’re working on a licensing agreement with an association so that we can use their publications. One of the factors in establishing the licensing fees is the number of users who will download association-based information from our web site.We want to track how many unique individuals view a page and how many unique individuals download a document. Would you please confirm that this type of tracking can be done with GA?

    Thank you!

    Reply
  41. Justin Cutroni says

    July 18, 2008 at 11:03 pm

    Hi Carla,

    Google Analytics does not track how many unique people visit a specific page or download a file. It tracks how many visits include a specific page.

    As a workaround, you could do is create a profile for the specific pages and files that you want to track and then use the Absolute Unique Visitors report to identify the number of people that viewed the content.

    Hope that clarifies things. Thanks for the question.

    Justin

    Reply
  42. crokodil says

    August 28, 2008 at 4:09 am

    Hi,

    how to setup GOAL URL for fuly dynamic URL like this example:

    http://www.shopcentar.hr/webhosting/web_hosting_index.php?http_page=hosting/web_hosting_index.php&session=c45fcee7cf84461e0eaf3b347a22c1dd50fe92b650dd93ddb75f94efdc33f95f&http_color=gray&http_lang=cro&http_button=select&http_currency=HRK

    So GOAL URL must be
    /webhosting/web_hosting_index.php

    But google dont count my GOLAS.

    Please give me a clue.

    Regards, Sasa R.

    http://www.shopcentar.hr
    .mobi
    .com .eu .net .biz .info .org .tv
    .in .cc .ws .cn .com.hr .eu.com

    Reply
  43. Justin Cutroni says

    August 28, 2008 at 8:13 am

    Hi crokodil,

    I would double check to insure that you are using a ‘head’ match, and not an exact match or a regular expression.

    Also, you may want to make sure that the page is tagged correctly. Try looking in your top content report for the page that you have identified as your goal page. If you can’t find it in your top content report then there is an issue with the page tag.

    Justin

    Reply
  44. crokodil says

    August 28, 2008 at 3:11 pm

    Hi,

    sorry, I forget to add on that page google tracker script “#$%&/().

    What to say :)))

    But you are help me to get solution becouse I cannot find that pages in report :)))

    Many thanks.

    Have a nice day.

    bye, Sasa

    Regards, Sasa R.

    http://www.shopcentar.hr
    .mobi
    .com .eu .net .biz .info .org .tv
    .in .cc .ws .cn .com.hr .eu.com

    Reply
  45. internet marketing secrets says

    December 18, 2008 at 4:48 pm

    I’m usually pretty good with setting up analytics, goals, filters, etc… This is stumping me. For some reason this isn’t working. How would I setup a goal conversion for a url like this:

    https://www.abcd.com/directory/index.php?affiliate=0

    I tried head match:

    ^/directory/index.php\?

    ^/directory/index.php?affiliate

    Neither of these are working… I just don’t understand why. I’m usually really good with analytics. What am I missing here?

    Reply
  46. Steve says

    January 29, 2009 at 9:16 am

    Can I put Google Analytics code in all website pages?

    Reply
  47. Justin Cutroni says

    February 11, 2009 at 3:37 pm

    IMS,

    It looks like you’re using a reg ex with a head match. You need to change the match type to reg ex.

    Steve,

    Yes, you can, and in my opinion, you should put the GA code on all the pages on your site. If you don’t add the code to a page then you won’t get any data for that page.

    Thanks for the questions,

    Justin

    Reply
  48. Gunjan says

    February 12, 2009 at 9:16 am

    Very good explanation. But one thing i want to ask is Can we give website folder name in Goal URL?. I want to track folder of my website which contains all the articles. How can i track folders?. Actually my objective is to find out the relationship between the adsense and goals. Please let me know if there is any article regarding this.

    Reply
  49. Justin Cutroni says

    February 12, 2009 at 8:07 pm

    Gunjan,

    It sounds like you want to create a goal for all pages in a certain directory on your site. In this case use a regular expression for the goal URL. For example, if the you want to track a goal for every page in the blog directory then the reg ex would look like this:

    /blog/

    Remember, a visitor can only convert one per visit. So if the visitor views 10 pages in the blog directory GA will still only count 1 conversion.

    Justin

    Reply
  50. Desarrollo Web says

    February 19, 2009 at 6:13 pm

    Really good article, allready add to favorites.

    I have a goal that is to know how many people register at this site: http://www.soytuauto.com/registro.php but the problem is that the URI does not change during the process of registration like http://www.soytuauto.com/thanks.php. Is there a way to know how many people go through the funnel and how many stay in the way?

    Thanks,
    Juanca

    Reply
  51. Justin Cutroni says

    February 24, 2009 at 11:38 pm

    Juanca,

    You need to create a virtual pageview. This is done by manually manipulating the JS at the server level. You need to add some server level code that adds a value to urchinTracker(), or trackPageview(). This value, which is placed in the parens, will become a “virtual” pageview in GA. The result is the URL will remain the same, but you will get a different pageview in GA. You can then use this pageview as a goal URL.

    This post on tracking clicks in GA may help.

    Justin

    Reply
  52. Desarrollo Web says

    February 25, 2009 at 9:06 am

    Thanx, that’s just what I started to do :).
    Best,
    Juanca

    Reply
  53. José Antonio says

    March 5, 2009 at 5:48 am

    Hi, Justin

    we have a problem with goals management. We use regular expressions as match type: the page marks appers in contents table indeed, even when the reg exp is provided in “looking for a page that contains”, but not every view pages has relation as goal, how is it possible?

    Thanks in advance.

    Reply
  54. Justin Cutroni says

    March 12, 2009 at 8:26 am

    Jose,

    GA only counts one goal per visit. This means that the number of conversions will not match the number of pageviews. Rather it will match the number of unique pageviews.

    Why does Google do it this way? I’m not sure, but I think it’s due to their long term focus on commerce, and people usually only submit one transaction per visit.

    Thanks for the question,

    Justin

    Reply
  55. Brandy says

    March 16, 2009 at 5:16 pm

    Hi Justin,

    I have already successfully set up a goal for our company website but I have a second goal I would like to add entirely separate from the first. Is that a possibility?

    Thanks,
    Brandy

    Reply
  56. Amy says

    March 17, 2009 at 5:27 pm

    Hi, great article and very informative. I’m new to GA and tasked with getting some goals set up, so I’m doing lots of research.

    One thing I’m wondering, and I don’t really see this touched on a lot in my reading (at least haven’t seen it so far) is how AdWords ties in with Analytics Goals…or if it even does. Just trying to put a picture together. Any thoughts?

    Reply
  57. Justin Cutroni says

    March 18, 2009 at 8:04 am

    Hi Amy,

    To connect a conversion to AdWords requires link tagging. Conversion tracking and campaign racking are actually two very difference configuration steps and both are critical. Once you set up goals and tag all of your campaign links then GA wil link conversions to your marketing (ie AdWords) campaigns.

    You can read more about campaign tracking in this series of posts.

    Hope that helps,

    Justin

    Reply
  58. Justin Cutroni says

    March 18, 2009 at 8:07 am

    Brandy,

    You can set up 4 goals per profile in Google Analytics. Check your profile settings, Goals section. You should see 4 line items to add goals.

    Hope that helps,

    Justin

    Reply
  59. Amy says

    March 19, 2009 at 1:38 pm

    Justin,
    Thanks for the reply re: goals and AdWords. However, I would love some clarification…does this apply even if your goals are NOT advertising campaigns? I’d think the answer would be no.

    Also…re: link tracking. We already track our campaigns in a 3rd party tool that basically tracks things in exactly the same way…is it really necessary to also do Google link tagging? It seems redundant to what we’re already doing.

    Reply
  60. Justin Cutroni says

    March 19, 2009 at 4:31 pm

    Amy,

    Goals are completely independant of advertising campaign. Google links a conversion to a visitor’s source based on the value in the tracking cookies. If the cookie says campaign, then the conversion gets attributed to the campaign. If the cookie says referral then the conversion goes to the referral.

    If you’ve already tagged your links with another tool’s campaign parameters you can tweak GA to use those parameters. Heck out some of this info from the GA Code site.

    Best,

    Justin

    Reply
  61. Amy says

    March 19, 2009 at 4:35 pm

    Unfortunately, the links are not tagged…the way it works is, I pass a campaign ID value through to our product as a hidden form field. The campaign is set up within the product with the parameters of vendor, medium, etc. so the reporting on that stuff has to be done within that tool. :-/

    Reply
  62. Justin Cutroni says

    March 19, 2009 at 4:44 pm

    Amy, sounds like you’re SOL. If there are no parameters in the URL when the visitor lands on the site then GA can’t identify where the visitor came from. Even if you have a single ID number in the URL we need more info.

    Hope that clarifies things…

    Justin

    Reply
  63. Rhonda says

    April 6, 2009 at 3:58 pm

    Good Post. I have one question. Is it possible to count the same goal during the same visit more than once? I have a site that requires users to search for information and then they have the option to modify their search. The search button is my goal. I would like to count multiple searches more than once. At the moment Google Analytics counts multiple searches as one conversion. Thank you

    Reply
  64. Sam says

    April 16, 2009 at 8:01 am

    Hi Justin,

    I am trying to use Goals with Protx eccomerce on our site, but so far, there have been no completed goals recorded (there have been sales so this there should be goals reported), I am using “/store/order-complete/?crypt=” head match for the following unique (example) url:

    /store/order-complete/?crypt=xxrandomxx

    now, as I was getting no data back I checked in Top Content reporting as you suggested, and noticed that the goal pages were coming up, but as the following:

    /store/order-complete//?crypt=xxrandomxx

    Notice how google analytics is picking up // (double slash) instead of a single /.

    Why would it be doing this? I have gone through all the steps on our site, and all the URLs only ever exhibit 1 slash.

    Many thanks for your time

    Reply
  65. Justin Cutroni says

    April 16, 2009 at 3:02 pm

    Sam,

    Interesting, not sure why there is a double slash. Are you using some type of filter to modify the Request URI?

    My suggestion would be to use a head match on the following value:

    /store/order-complete/

    Thanks for the comment and thanks for reading the blog.

    Jusitn

    Reply
  66. Justin Cutroni says

    April 16, 2009 at 3:49 pm

    Rhonda,

    No. GA will only count one conversion per goal, per visit. What you may want to do is manually calculate conversion rate using pageviews OR configure GA to count an e-commerce transaction when the button is clicked. GA will count multiple transactions per visit.

    Thanks for the question,

    Justin

    Reply
  67. doug says

    May 15, 2009 at 12:26 am

    I am trying to set a goal of captured email address. The visitor fills out a 4 step form that is powered by a data base. The URL doesn’t change as a visitor goes from step to step so I’m not sure how to track the goal of submitted email address.

    Can this be done?

    Reply
    • Justin Cutroni says

      May 18, 2009 at 7:35 pm

      Hi Doug,

      Yes, you can track that process and create a goal when the process is complete. The key is you need to add some server level code that manipulates the GA code. Every time the server completes a step, it must manipulate the GA code before sending it back to the browser. Specifically, the new server side code must place a value in the _trackPageview() method. Place a different value in the parens for each “logical” step of the process. Here’s an example:

      _trackPageview(‘/step1’);
      _trackPageview(‘/step2’);
      etc.

      Thanks for the question!

      Justin

      Reply
  68. hostmaster says

    May 19, 2009 at 11:10 am

    Hi: I have a website with more than 4 goals that I need to track. I’m already creating funnels using _trackPageView() to assign unique goals, but I need more than 4.

    If I set up a second profile for that domain, a new tracking code is generated…but I still want to track overall pageviews for the domain. Do I need to have both tracking codes on the pages with the additional goals, or is there a different way to configure GA?

    Reply
    • Justin Cutroni says

      May 19, 2009 at 1:17 pm

      Hostmaster,

      You can create a duplicate profile from an existing domain. In this scenario Google uses the current tracking code and then “copies” the raw data into the new profile. Note that Google does not copy the settings for the profile, you’ll need to configure the profile. It just copies the raw data.

      Thanks for the question,

      Justin

      Reply
  69. Kane says

    April 14, 2010 at 8:17 am

    I am thoroughly confused although it seems to make sense.But I haven’t the slightest cue as to what words I should or can use. Is the goal page the article page. I seed alot of links.. Let me know if this makes sense if it doesn’t I would love to send you a pic of the page I am referring to.. Thank you, I really hope I didn’t confuse you, but I am new to this and all web jargon.

    Reply
    • Justin Cutroni says

      April 19, 2010 at 11:11 am

      @Kane: The goal page should be the page that best represents a goal on your site. So if you are trying to get people to view a specific article on your site then you should use the URL of that article for the goal URL. Hope that helps!

      Justin

      Reply
  70. Tanz says

    February 4, 2012 at 11:49 pm

    What should I do if I need to setup multiple goals but have a single goal URL. For example, on my e-commerce site, I have multiple products for which I need to setup goals separately, but the final page after sales (Thank you) is common for all products. So if I set that as the Goal URL it counts for every goal and not just for the particular product.

    Reply
    • Justin Cutroni says

      February 9, 2012 at 11:54 am

      @ Tanz: That is a challenge. But if your site is an ecommerce site, can’t you just track the products with the ecommerce tracking code? Why do you need a separate goal for each product?

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Google Analytics Review « Internet Marketing Blog by Noon-an-Night says:
    July 10, 2007 at 10:00 pm

    […] Instead of wasting your time by writing out all the capabilities and features of Google Analytics, I highly recommend viewing this set of five tutorial videos. Each video covers a different topic, including Basics, Essential Stats, Digging Deeper, Goals (goals are a method for measuring conversions. You can define anything from viewing a specific page to completing an action as a goal. You can continue reading about goals here.) and Search Analytics. […]

    Reply
  2. Google Analytics Experts → From EpikOne | All About Google Analytics Goals says:
    July 12, 2007 at 12:45 pm

    […] During this post I’m only going to cover how goals work and how to set them up. I’ll discuss how to use goals in my next post. Read full post at Analytics Talk Blog! […]

    Reply
  3. The Venture Skills Blog Page not found again! 404 in depth « says:
    July 24, 2007 at 4:44 am

    […] If your using Google analytics then tracking 404’s are easy enough to do, Blogstorm has a great analytics tutorial which includes a section on 404 tracking. <script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js”&gt; </script> <script type=”text/javascript”> _uacct = “xxxxx-x”; urchinTracker(”/404.html?page=” + _udl.pathname + _udl.search); </script> Replacing the xxxxx-xx with your own analytics code We have discussed following outgoing clicks before but to quickly recap, <a href=”outgoinglink” onClick=”javascript:urchinTracker (‘/404/outgoing’); “> With a little work we can gain a vast amount of information and with a combination of filters and email reports we can be notified of errors that are occuring. If you are not already doing so I strongly recommend setting up goals for content on your site and this includes conversion tracking on a 404. […]

    Reply
  4. Tracking Multiple Sub-domains in Google Analytics » Viget’s Four Labs says:
    August 15, 2007 at 2:11 pm

    […] You will have to update your goal tracking to reflect the modified URL. The easiest way to do this is to use Regular Expression Matching. By selecting Regular expression match you can put in just a portion of the URL which needs to match. EpikOne has a great Tutorial Here on setting up goals with Regular Expressions. […]

    Reply
  5. Undermining analytics is just plain stubborn : MediaVision Blog : Search Engine Marketing says:
    March 12, 2008 at 7:17 am

    […] Analytics, depending on how they are presented, are rich sources of valuable information about these points. If you don’t know what the opinions of your visitors are when they arrive at your site, analytics tell you, for instance, which pages are receiving the most visitors, from where they came, and whether they stayed on the page or made a purchase or read the article or whatever. From this you can determine quite accurately how generally effective your content has been in its function. Google Analytics have “goals”, which are pages that are visited when someone makes a purchase or does something you want them to. Google Analytics use goals to measure how many people purchased from your website or what audience a press release has had, and such things. […]

    Reply
  6. Get more from Google Analytics by tomorrow morning | Tracking Tourism: The Tourism Research Blog says:
    April 24, 2008 at 8:56 am

    […] More on setting up goals from Justin Cutroni and in this 7 min video from WebShare […]

    Reply
  7. Alles over Google Analytics Goals | SEO Update says:
    July 24, 2008 at 4:24 am

    […] Lees meer:  Analytics Talk » Blog Archive » All About Google Analytics Goals […]

    Reply
  8. Match Types Google Analytics goals | SEO Update says:
    July 24, 2008 at 4:27 am

    […] Lees meer: Analytics Talk » Blog Archive » All About Google Analytics Goals […]

    Reply
  9. 78 Essential Search Engine Marketing & SEO Resources! | Sourfizz says:
    August 28, 2008 at 12:53 am

    […] Google Analytics How do I track e-commerce transactions? Advanced use of Google Analytics and the new interface All About Google Analytics Goals […]

    Reply
  10. 80 Essential Search Engine Marketing & SEO Resources! says:
    September 13, 2008 at 10:45 am

    […] Google Analytics How do I track e-commerce transactions? Advanced use of Google Analytics and the new interface All About Google Analytics Goals […]

    Reply
  11. 80 Essential Search Engine Marketing & SEO Resources! says:
    September 13, 2008 at 10:45 am

    […] Google Analytics How do I track e-commerce transactions? Advanced use of Google Analytics and the new interface All About Google Analytics Goals […]

    Reply
  12. 80 Essential Search Engine Marketing & SEO Resources! says:
    September 13, 2008 at 10:45 am

    […] Google Analytics How do I track e-commerce transactions? Advanced use of Google Analytics and the new interface All About Google Analytics Goals […]

    Reply
  13. 80 Essential Search Engine Marketing & SEO Resources! says:
    September 13, 2008 at 10:45 am

    […] Google Analytics How do I track e-commerce transactions? Advanced use of Google Analytics and the new interface All About Google Analytics Goals […]

    Reply
  14. 404 not foud, why ? | thefirst-online says:
    December 17, 2008 at 2:13 pm

    […] we can be notified of errors that are occuring. If you are not already doing so I strongly recommend setting up goals for content on your site and this includes conversion tracking on a […]

    Reply
  15. COG IT Solutions Pvt. Ltd. - PHP, ASP.NET, ecommerce, Joomla, Zen Cart, OsCommerce, Web 2.0, CSS, Stylesheet, Content Management, web development says:
    January 19, 2009 at 10:10 am

    […] Google Analytics How do I track e-commerce transactions? Advanced use of Google Analytics and the new interface All About Google Analytics Goals […]

    Reply
  16. Back to Basics: Install your tracking code in under two minutes - Google Stuff says:
    March 2, 2009 at 6:39 pm

    […] have your tracking code up and running, here are some good next steps:Set up goals (Help Center, Tutorial)Link your AdWords and Google Analytics account (Help Center, Video)Configure some profiles and […]

    Reply
  17. Back to Basics: Install your tracking code in under two minutes says:
    March 2, 2009 at 8:25 pm

    […] Set up goals (Help Center, Tutorial) […]

    Reply
  18. How to Setup Goals in Google Analytics - Google Stuff says:
    May 19, 2009 at 3:58 pm

    […] IQ Lesson: Goals in Google AnalyticsHow to Use Ecommerce TrackingTracking E-mail Clicks as a GoalAll About Analytics GoalsGoals for BloggersVideo: Setting up Google Analytics Conversion FunnelsVideo: Goals and […]

    Reply
  19. How to Setup Goals in Google Analytics says:
    May 20, 2009 at 4:10 am

    […] All About Analytics Goals […]

    Reply
  20. eCommerce Share » How to Setup Goals in Google Analytics says:
    May 21, 2009 at 10:19 pm

    […] All About Analytics Goals […]

    Reply
  21. How to Setup Goals in Google Analytics | rapid-DEV.net says:
    June 15, 2009 at 12:25 am

    […] All About Analytics Goals […]

    Reply
  22. How to Setup Goals in Google Analytics | work4real says:
    June 16, 2009 at 6:54 am

    […] All About Analytics Goals […]

    Reply
  23. Getting smarter with your online marketing | Tracking Tourism: The Tourism Research Blog says:
    June 17, 2009 at 11:43 am

    […] do no better than to echo Vicky’s earlier post by recommending Justin Cutroni’s article here and  his video […]

    Reply
  24. Using Google Analytics to Measure Traffic to Your WordPress Blog | Website In A Weekend says:
    July 22, 2009 at 11:16 am

    […] Analytics Talk from EpikOne’s Justin Cutroni goes into very good detail on definitions you need to know on the terms used in goal setting and defining sales funnels. A must read. […]

    Reply
  25. Google Analytics - New Goal COnversion Setup | Search Engine Marketing - Search Engine Guide Blog says:
    November 6, 2009 at 9:11 am

    […] The old standby! ‘Traditional’ goals are now called URL Destination Goals. You can still use a regular expression, head match or exact match to identify a page that represents a goal. This functionality has not changed (you can learn more about goals in this old post.) […]

    Reply
  26. DataJoe on SEO: Baseline Assessment Part 2 « DataJoe LLC says:
    April 13, 2010 at 10:58 am

    […] to track how many users are coming to your site and where they’re coming from, as well as set goals to see how often you achieve a conversion. For instance, if your company sells products, then the […]

    Reply
  27. Making Better Decisions with Web Analytics | ePublish Media says:
    May 31, 2010 at 7:27 pm

    […] All About Google Analytics Goals […]

    Reply
  28. Google analytics for outbound links, event, and goal tracking on the Easy-IP website « Skyrack Technology says:
    September 13, 2010 at 2:24 pm

    […] Theres also a nice blog on goals at: http://cutroni.wpengine.com/2007/07/07/google-analytics-goals/ […]

    Reply
  29. Google analytics for outbound links, event, and goal tracking on the Easy-IP website « Skyrack Technology – Converged Solutions says:
    November 17, 2010 at 6:31 am

    […] Theres also a nice blog on goals at: http://cutroni.wpengine.com/2007/07/07/google-analytics-goals/ […]

    Reply
  30. A Quick Explanation of Google Analytics Events for the Sitecatalyst Power User | Gilligan on Data by Tim Wilson says:
    July 12, 2011 at 12:57 pm

    […] Up until the most recent release of Google Analytics, and much to the chagrin of analysts the world over, Google Analytics events could not be set as “goals,” and goals in Google Analytics — configured by a Google Analytics admin user rather than anywhere in the page tag — are the closest that Google Analytics comes to the concept of a Sitecatalyst “event.” Did you catch that? If you’re looking to implement something akin to a “Sitecatalyst event” in Google Analytics, read up on Google Analytics goals. […]

    Reply
  31. » An Explanation of Google Analytics Events for the Sitecatalyst Power User | Tim Wilson's Blog at Web Analytics Demystified says:
    July 9, 2013 at 3:21 pm

    […] Did you catch that? If you’re looking to implement something akin to a “Sitecatalyst event” in Google Analytics, read up on Google Analytics goals. […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

My Books

Google Analytics by Justin Cutroni
Learn More on Amazon.com

Performance Marketing co-authored by Justin Cutroni
Learn More on Amazon.com

Recent Posts

  • Understanding the Google Analytics Cohort Report
  • Using Offline and Online data to drive Google Analytics Remarketing
  • Understanding Cross Device Measurement and the User-ID
  • Universal Analytics: Now out of beta!
  • Advanced Content Tracking with Universal Analytics

Categories

  • About Google Analytics (25)
  • Analysis (52)
  • Analytics Strategy (3)
  • Campaign Tracking (14)
  • Ecommerce (8)
  • Event Tracking (10)
  • Remarketing (2)
  • Reporting (10)
  • Resources (7)
  • Tag Management (5)
  • Tips (25)
  • Tracking (52)
  • Uncategorized (64)
  • Universal Analytics (9)
  • Web Analytics (15)

Copyright © 2023 ·News Pro Theme · Genesis Framework by StudioPress · WordPress