Google Analytics: Do 'Goals' actually work?
-
Hi,
Hoping someone can clarify this for me. I've set a goal up whereby the rule is to pick up all pages with "Thank-you" in the destination URL (regular expression). So, when someone fills out a form, it will count as a lead. I'm about 8 weeks in to the campaign now and measuring the last 4 weeks I've had a total of 30 goals completed. I have two issues with this and I really hope someone can help clarify:
-
Using a custom report I can see that I've actually had 52 Visits to the Thank-You pages, 49 Unique Visits and 60 pageviews. Where is Google getting the goals from?
-
I have 51 leads in my inbox from the campaign so far. So, much closer to the above stats in the custom report than in the Goal report. Why is this?
Thanking you in advance!
-
-
Did you ever figure this out? My hunch is that Dana's first suggestion might be the cause.
Are you sure the regex is set up correctly? It might help to export the list of URIs from analytics and test your regex against them in some kind of text editor w/ regex support, e.g., sublime text.
Did you get multiple leads from the same person? Google Analytics will only count a goal completion once per visit—so if the same person converts several times in one visit, you'll only see a single goal completion for them.
-
Well, there are about 40 products, out of which there are two different types of forms. So for example "red shoes" product page will go to either:
www.website.com/red-shoes/call-form/Thank-you
www.website.com/red-shoes/Info-Form/Thank-you
Repeat that across all products. The urls start to look a bit messy as you start to see all of the CLID (PPC) and other strings after the thank-you section of the URL. This is why I'm trying to just use a the regular match to say "Yeah, it contains Thank-you somewhere in the URL". Does this make sense?
-
can you private message me the site's URL or the thank you URL? I'm a little lost. You have + 80 forms pointing to the same "thank you" or confirmation page?
-
Hey Dubs,
Thanks for the reply. Much appreciated. Forgive me for being a little naive, does this mean the URL needs to begin with "thank-you" then? This would be ideal but the problem is there are over 80 forms and each have different mechanisms of working, which will result in various URL outputs. All I know is that in every outcome, "thank-you" will feature in the URL. Does this make sense?
Steve
-
Instead of using Reg Ex, can you set the goal using the head match instead? My understanding is that the head match will consider all url's that begin with the /thank-you. Google Analytics is constantly making updates to their interface, it appears the match type is now call "Begins with" instead of head match.
I tried to attach a cropped screen shot
-
Hi Dana,
Many thanks for prompt reply. I've actually heard this a few times now about people clicking X before the script can load. Would this also affect the recorded visits to that page as well? Also, the code is sitting just before , so perhaps moving it up to the top may help?
Welll the set up is very simply, there are no steps to it, for a goal to happen the user must hit a page with Thank-You in the destination URL. That's it! The only way to get to these pages is via a form and they're not indexed either. I'll look in to your question regarding commonality in visit paths, interesting suggestion and worth looking in to.
Stephen
-
Hi Steve,
I believe this discrepancy could be happening because in order for a "goal" to be completed, the analytics script must complete load on the "Thank You" page. Sometimes a user will "x" out of a page before the script can completly loading, so that lead doesn't get counted as a completed goal. Similar discrepancies happen when viewing conversion stats in Adwords versus Google Analytics.
If the previous scenario is not the cause, it could be something in the setup of the goal that isn't attributing a goal properly. Is there anything "in common" about the visitors' paths for the ones that weren't counted? Perhaps investigate that to see if perhaps you've included some steps that maybe don't need to be there...or if your "required" step can somehow be bypassed but still lead to a conversion.
Hope that helps a little!
Dana
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
We've a client that wants to repurpose some of the content on there site but not lose rankings. However its changing the content to an alternative to ....
The Current URL Example would be test.co.uk/prodcut-catogory/product-1 . This side of the business is being sold however they have products elsewhere in the range that can be used as alternatives to the product range that will be moved, so they want to amend these pages with an " alternative " slant. Example idea would be to change to the following : test.co.uk/prodcut-catogory/alternative-to-product-1, trying not to change the URL to much, keeping the majority of the content the same but adding new copy stating the benefits of using the alternative product. So it becomes a comparison between the two. I appreciate I will have to amend the URLs, titles, meta, H1s, add new copy & preform a 301's. Option 2 Simply write a second page which is all brand new content talking about it being an alternative to the products and doing a 301 from the original page but not amending that. Be great to get peoples feedback on this approach and if there is anything else that I could do to minimise the drop in rankings once I complete the changes. Thank you D
Conversion Rate Optimization | | SDOwner0 -
Better use Google Analytics? This is for Conversion Rate Optimization purposes
Hi Moz-ers, I've had much help from the Moz community and hoping you can help me out on this one too. I would like to track everyone who visits our town listing pages. We operate much like ratings and reviews websites like tripadvisor and booking.com. What is the best way to track visitors coming to our listings pages only (for example tripadvisor shows top 10 hotels in London.) I would like Google Analytics on London and all other towns including Birmingham, Southampton ect... Is it possible to set up Google analytics to track this? These are our highest volume pages so having an idea of the traffic behaviour is crucial for SEO and Conversion Rate Optimization. As usual, looking forward to the advice we receive! Thanks,
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Eric_S
Eric0 -
Metadescription (SERP's) with green checkmarks: spammy or not?
HI Will a Metadescription with GREEN checkmarks be perceived as spammy in general? Or is one with BLACK checkmarks better? Depends on the topic/target audience, etc.? --> see screenshots. No doubt that the green will stand up more (increases CTR) in the SERPS but if it is perceived as less trustworthy or even spammy by the target audience its not worth doing it. Any experience with that? Would really like to know what do you think about it. Cheers, Cesare 0G3Fd
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Cesare.Marchetti0 -
Google Adwords Offered to Redesign My Website & A/B Test... Thoughts?
I received a call from the Google Adwords team today offering to redesign major pages of my website & A/B test their design against mine. The rep said that this is not a standard service they offer and that we had been "selected". Despite it's overt marketing overtones, I would hate to pass by the opportunity to apply Google's conversion insight to my site. Has anyone experienced this before? Good experience? Bad experience?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Glathrop1 -
Modified broad match vs phrase match strategy - Google Adwords
Hi All, I am looking through a client account that is very mature (10+ years running) on Google AdWords. As soon as it became available, this client adopted a modified broad match (MBM) strategy and has removed all phrase match and exact match keyword types. The account has hundreds of thousands of active keywords. Over the past few years, the CPCs have been rising. While I know that market values of keywords in general have risen consistently year after year, I speculate that this client is actually causing their own prices to go up faster than they should. I have a couple of questions regarding strategy that I am considering that I want to know if anyone else has any experience with... by having many MBM versions of the same keyword, is it possible for cannibalization to occur for most of the variations? Example query: new red running shoes
Conversion Rate Optimization | | dsinger
variations Ad group 1: +red running shoes, +red +running shoes, red +running +shoes, red running +shoes
variations ad group 2: +blue running shoes, +blue +running shoes, blue +running +shoes, blue running +shoes based on the logic of MBM, the possible matches to this query from the available variations are +red running shoes, +red +running shoes, red +running +shoes, red running +shoes, blue +running +shoes, blue running +shoes. So, if the performance of those blue variations trump the more closely related red variations, this searcher may actually see an ad about blue running shoes, even though they have indicated they are more interested in red. in terms of cost, I would anticipate that MBM keywords are more expensive than their phrase match counterparts. can anyone confirm or deny this? My thoughts are that with several years of actual search terms being collected, this client should be able to do a great job of covering almost every variation of keyword that customers have used and create a strong list of phrase match keywords to satisfy all relevant queries. MBM keywords seem like they are a lazy way of getting traffic at a higher cost that can actually cannibalize close variations that exist in the account, causing the wrong ad to be shown based on matching/relevancy and a higher price CPC in the long run. Thoughts?1 -
Analytics : Goal tracking for multiple payment methods
ello! I don't know if anyone else has come across this problem, but our ecommerce site offers two payment methods during checkout. I've set up goals and they successfully record the total number of transactions. Our site offers two payment methods (credit card and purchase order) and once you hit the 'select your payment' page, you're directed to different pages to make payment and end up on the thank you page. I created two goals, a credit card one that has "funnel" turned on and lists every page a 'credit card' customer would undertake, and a 'purchase order' goal listing all the pages a customer who undertake when making a "purchase order" payment. Google is however recording figures for both. Say I had 10 credit card orders and 5 purchase order, my Goals report 15 for both. Anyone come across this?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Bio-RadAbs0 -
Analytics (Other Than Google) & A/B Testing Tools
Hey, I have Google Analytics on my website, like most people, but I was looking at some other analytics and testing tools like heat maps, click maps, A/B, etc. I was hoping that some of you could recommend a few that you use to see where pages are going wrong, track user behaviour and to how improve conversion rate. I have had a look at a few websites like: https://www.clicktale.com/
Conversion Rate Optimization | | JonathanRolande
https://www.optimizely.com/ It would also be interesting to know how acurate these tools actually are, they seem quite legit. Cheers0 -
How accurate is the Geo-Targeting of Google and Bing/Yahoo PPC ads?
I have a client who serves a local market and who has had trouble in the past with people out of her service area clicking on ads. She asked how accurate the geo-targeting option is. I know it's not possible to be completely accurate resolving the location of IP addresses, but was wondering if there are any recent statistics out there regarding how accurate or inaccurate geo-targeting is. I did some quick searches but did not see any current numbers. Many Thanks!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | JKuly0