Guide to Setting up goals (conversion tracking) in Google Analytics

If you've gone into your Google AdWords account to set up cross channel conversion tracking recently, you may have found yourself wondering where the magic "Cross Channel Conversion Tracking" link has gone.

Don't worry, you're not going mad. If you haven't already set it up, Google has moved their cross channel conversion solution into their Google Analytics product. This guide will provide some light on setting up goals and successfully tracking on your all you PPC campaigns, from Google and beyond.

This guide assumes you already have an analytics account set up and the Google Analytics code on your site. If you don't, please view this guide on Google Analytics first for more info.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Select a Goal to Configure

Kick off your goal creation process using these steps.

I recommend:

• Log into your Analytics account and make sure you are on the "Analytics Settings" screen.
• Under the desired website profile, select "Edit" under the settings column.
• Under the "Conversion Goals and Funnel" section, there are four spaces for setting up goals.
• Select a goal that has not been configured and select "Edit" under the settings column.

Enter Goal Information - Select a Match Type

The match type you select depends on, among other things, the type of site you have. (Static vs. Dynamic, etc)

I recommend: Choose a match type based on the following: 

• Exact Match - the URLs you enter for your goal URL must match EXACTLY the URLs that appear in your reports. (No dynamic identifiers or query strings.)
• Head Match - If your site uses dynamic content, use this type and leave out the unique values in the goal URL.
• Regular Expression Match - This option uses regular expressions to match your URLs. This is useful when the stem, trailing parameters, or both, can vary between users.

For more info on match types, refer to Google's online documentation.

Enter Goal Information - Enter the Goal URL

Tell the Analytics system what you regard as an action worth tracking. The Goal URL (or conversion point) is the page that is displayed once the user has completed an action that's important to you. This action may include: * Purchasing a product * Completing a contact form

I recommend: In each case, please remember that the goal URL will be the URL of the confirmation page.

Enter Goal Information - Enter the Goal Name, Goal Value and Case Sensitivity

Complete the last three pieces of information required for setting up a goal.

I recommend:

• Choose a goal name that is meaningful to the particular conversion action you are trying to capture. The goal name will appear in the Google reports.
• If appriopriate, you can attach a value to the goal. This will appear in Googles R.O.I calculations.
• Select whether the goal URL is case sensitive. 

Define a Funnel

NOTE: This step is optional.

I recommend: If you want to get more insight into how a user arrives at a goal, you can specify the URLs of these steps. The results will apppear in the "Funnel Visualization Report".

Create the required tracking tags for your other PPC URLs

Configuring the analytics goals is the first step. Next, you need to change your URLs so Google Analytics knows which ones to track.

I recommend: Click here to create the required tracking tags by using Google's "URL Builder."  Follow these steps:

• Insert your Website URL
• Insert a Campaign Source, i.e. "BDC"
• Insert a Campaign Medium, i.e. "CPC"
• Insert a Campaign Term (keyword), i.e. "Hosting"
• Insert a Campaign Name (if a conversion occurs, it will be attributed to this campaign), i.e., "BDC_InternetListing"

Once complete, you will have your new destination URL for your  non-Google campaign.

If you have another keyword for the SAME CAMPAIGN, you can re-use the same URL as above but change the &utm_term value.

Once you have the URL, log into the non-Google PPC system and change the destination URLs of the campaign you created the tags for.

For more info on tagging links, please visit Google's online documentation.

Where to view the Goal Report by Keyword

Once you've set up the goal tracking, you need to know where to get the results.

I recommend:

• Go to "View Reports" in your Analytics account.
• From the left menu, select "Traffic Sources" then "Campaigns"
• A table should appear with all your listed campaigns. Select the appropriate campaign.
• Select the "Goal Conversion" tab and under the "Segment" dropdown, select "Keyword"

Tips & Tactics
Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• Complete the tagging of one campaign to start with. There's nothing worse than spending a lot of time configuring multiple campaigns for it not to work first time.
• Have your webmaster around to verify the URLs of your goals.
• Google reporting takes around 24 hours to refresh, so don't panic if you don't see stats right away.
• You can test your newly tagged URLs without actually changing the destination URLs in your non-Google PPC system. Merely paste the newly tagged URL into a browser, complete the required goal and check reporting the next day.