Stop misinterpreting Google Analytics Goals and avoid getting unfavourable results. If you want to know more, read this article.

Do you want to create a solid digital measurement plan? If yes, then you must know the ins and outs of Google Analytics goals.

If not, then you miss out on the tool’s true potential.

When your website serves a business purpose, you surely have a specific visitor action. That’s common sense. If you solve their problems, people will visit your site. 

Google Analytics goals collect data on these actions in a variety of ways. These data power reports analyze behavior, acquisition, and demographics.

Simply put, they help gauge your progress toward business goals—essential data, right?

This tutorial will walk you through creating goals. Here, I will discuss basic templates for advanced uses. Plus, you get strategic aspects of Google Analytics goals as well.

To begin, let’s explore Google Analytics goals and their various types.

How Do Goals Work?

What are goals in general? Something that you want to achieve through a task. Right?

When it comes to Google Analytics…

…you can set up goals at the view level and apply them to specific actions.

These actions include:

• Pages or screens they visit.
• Their session duration.
• The number of pages/screens per session.
• Triggered events.

Additionally, each goal can be assigned a monetary value. It helps you assess the conversion’s business worth.

Assigning each value lets you focus on high-value conversions. It’s like transactions meeting a minimum purchase requirement.

What is a conversion?

A conversion occurs when a site visitor or app user completes a defined goal action. This conversion data is subsequently accessible in specialized reports.

Now that you get a basic overview of goals, it’s time to know the categories.

Here are the Categorize of Different Goals

You can segregate goals as per their use. Well, let’s start.

Destination Goals

These are goals set based on a specific location where users arrive, indicating a successful conversion.

For example, if you have a website and you want to track how many users successfully register…

….you can set a destination goal for the “Thank you for registering!” web page or a specific app screen.

When users reach this page or screen, it’s recorded as a conversion.

Duration Goals

With duration goals, you monitor users’ time on your site or app. This type of goal helps you understand user engagement.

For instance, if you run a support site and want to know if users find the information they need…

…you can set a duration goal of 10 minutes or longer.

When users spend at least this amount of time on your site, it counts as a conversion.

Pages/Screens per Session Goals

These goals track the number of pages or screens a user views during a single session. They reflect insights into how deeply users are engaging with your content.

How to check if users are exploring your website thoroughly? For example, you can set a goal for users to view 5 pages or screens during their session.

If that happens, conversions count.

Event Goals

Event goals are triggered when specific actions, known as events, occur on your site or app.

Events can encompass a wide range of user interactions, such as social recommendations, video plays, or ad clicks.

Setting up an event goal allows you to track and measure these user interactions as conversions.

For instance, if you want to measure how many users interact with your site’s social media share button.

Here, you can create an event goal for “Social Recommendation.”

When users engage with this feature, it’s recorded as a conversion.

Set SMART Goals

Smart Goals are tailor-made for Google Ads users with limited conversions. Analytics rates your site or app visits and converts the top ones into Smart Goals when active.

Smart Goals are set up at the view level. They use machine learning to analyze various website session signals. Plus, they pinpoint those most likely to convert.

Each session gets a score, and the top ones become Smart Goals.

Signals used in this model encompass:

• Session duration.
• Pages per session.
• Location.
• Device.
• Browser.

(Remarketing Smart Lists work similarly for identifying top users.)

Smart Goals identify the best sessions by selecting the top 5% of Google Ads traffic to your website.

This threshold applies to all website sessions, not just from Google Ads. Once you’ve enabled Smart Goals in Analytics, you can import them into Google Ads.

The Funnels for Achieving Destination Goals

Destination goals define the expected traffic path, or funnel. You can use multiple steps in this funnel. Using analytics, you can see where users enter and exit this path as they work towards your goal. You can find this information in the Goal Flow and Funnel reports.

Users leave on some pages or screens in a funnel before reaching their goal. There may be an issue with that particular step. They may skip some steps if the conversion path is too long or includes unnecessary steps.

Goal Value

You can assign a monetary value to each conversion when creating a goal. Your reports calculate the Goal Value based on this amount when a user achieves the goal.

A dollar value can be assigned to every user action. Analyzing how often users become customers after completing the goal can help determine a goal value. Each conversion is worth a certain amount.

Goal IDs and Number

There are 20 unique numeric IDs assigned to goals. Each set of goals can accommodate up to five individual goals. You can categorize different types of website goals using goal sets.

You can track downloads, registrations, and receipts using separate goal sets. The Explorer tab of various reports displays these sets as links.

Final Verdict – Goals Best Practices

The ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) metric is also computed using goal value data in Analytics. Use a consistent numeric scale instead of a dollar amount to compare conversions. For example, giving low-value goals a “1” and high-value goals a “10.”

Record when you modified or repurposed an existing goal. Historical data is not affected by goal changes.

Any alterations will only affect conversion data from the point of adjustment. Your reports must have clear, intuitive goal names to avoid confusion.

That’s all! I hope these insights will give you a roadmap. You can partner with any digital marketing agency if you still have more doubts.