How to Create, Edit and Share Google Analytics Goals?

Types of Goals in Google Analytics

Google Analytics introduces four main goals to help brands grow their businesses by improving their websites.  

1. Destination Goals

They track a visitor when they arrive on a specific page on a website. URL destination goals track specific URLs such that each time someone visits that URL, they trigger the goal. It helps in tracking the number of people who landed on a website's specified page.  

This goal is helpful for e-commerce website owners as they can track metrics such as how many add to carts and checkouts were completed.  

Ideal for: Thank you pages, PDFs, order confirmation pages, about, contact or add-to-cart pages or any other page that a user wants to count as a conversion.

2. Duration Goals

A simpler Google Analytics goal for creating a conversion based on the duration of a visitor's stay on a website before leaving. It helps track user engagement on the website via sessions that last a set amount of time or longer.

Ideal for: Support sites that help visitors answer their questions quickly. 

3. Pages/Visit Goals

In addition to tracking a visitor's time spent on the website, one can track the number of pages each visitor navigates to before leaving using the page per visit goal.

This Google Analytics goal facilitates the evaluation of overall site engagement. It also pinpoints sections of the website that require improvements.

Ideal for: Customer support sites

4. Event Goals

Event goals allow tracking of user interactions that Google Analytics doesn't normally record. For instance, setting up Google Analytics event goals enables tracking the following interactions in Google Analytics: 

• Form conversions 
• Button clicks 
• Clicks on outbound links
• Downloads (such as PDFs)
• Time spent watching videos

Ideal for: Sites offering downloads, social media buttons, and other clicks. 

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How to Set Up Goals in Google Analytics? 

Take the following steps to navigate to Google Analytics goals:

• Sign in to the Google Analytics account and click on the Admin option.  

The Goals Option in the Admin Section 

• Click on the desired view. The view column has 'Goals'.
• Click on the "+ New Goal and Import from Gallery" option to create a new goal.

New Goal Option for Creating Google Analytics Goals

Note: The + New Goal and Import from Gallery option is unavailable for users who have already created 20 goals for a current view, as 20 is the upper limit. 

• Next, you must enter a description and details related to your goal. 
• Users can select a 'Goal Slot ID' to group goals in their reports. 
• Give a suitable name and choose the correct goal type from the four options. For instance, click 'Destination' and then click 'Continue'.

Selecting Goal Type in Google Analytics

• Now enter the page path of the final URL as the 'Destination'.
• Click the Save button, and the goal is ready for use. 

Google Analytics presents the following three options for creating goals:

Using a Goal Template

The users can select a template from the list available when they click on the +New goal option. Goal templates are pre-designed to help users set actionable goals that suit their industry standards and business objectives. 

One can edit a template field before finalizing a goal. Creating at least one goal for every category (Revenue, Acquisition, Inquiry, Engagement) allows for a better understanding of how users interact with online website content. 

The goal templates are disabled for users who haven't selected an industry. So, to access templates, one has to edit the property, choose an industry category, and save the changes.

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Creating Custom Goals

The following steps help create a custom goal:

• Click on the custom option in the list and then click on next. 
• Select a goal type and click on the next step again.
• Choose your preferences from the list of options and create a custom goal.

Creating Custom Google Analytics Goals

Smart Goals

Certain accounts that meet the prerequisites, such as they have linked Analytics and Google Ads accounts, have the option to choose smart goals. One can select the smart goals option (if available) and set up a goal. Smart goals help determine the best sessions by establishing a threshold and selecting approximately the top 5% of the traffic to a site that comes from Google Ads. These goals apply the set threshold to all the target website sessions, including traffic from other channels.  

How to Edit Google Analytics Goals? 

The procedure for editing or revising a goal in progress is simple. It requires a user to click on the Edit link next to a previous step.  

Editing Google Analytics Goals 

To edit an existing goal, go to the list of goals and click on a goal name. Follow the step-by-step procedure to edit the details.

How to Share Google Analytics Goals? 

Once a user creates and saves a goal, they can share it with other Google Analytics users, just like they share Analytics Dashboards, Channel Groupings, Segments, and more. The configuration information gets shared while the data remains private. If you have websites with several goals associated with them, select the goals from the list and then click on the "Share" button.

Sharing goals in Google Analytics

A prompt box appears asking how you would like to share the selected goals. Select the "Share template link" options and click on the "Share" button. A link is generated for sharing the selected goals that can be pasted into your browser.  

Selecting a Method For Sharing Goals

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