How to Set Up Goals in Google Analytics

Everybody knows somebody just like this.

She’s glowing on the outside, all put together and eternally positive.

Her business is KILLING IT. And not just because her blog looks so good and she’s obviously invested money in professional design and content. That too, but you’ve had an inside look. You know about her numbers. Seriously raking it in.

And yet . . . something’s missing. You haven’t got a clue about it – why would you? It’s the kind of thing people don’t talk about.

She’s Google Analytics illiterate.

You’re right, you’re right – I should be fair. She’s not illiterate, just not winning any data-driven spelling bees.

I have one of those friends, and I still can’t completely wrap my brain around it. This lady’s been in business for a few years, taking an offline venture online about 2 years ago. She’s got a beautiful website site, truly astounding products, and some blog posts that will literally change your life.

Needless to say I was thrilled to start working with her.

So we’re strategizing for her next launch, talking about what’s already working so we could build on that. I head into her Google Analytics account to try to see where the people who ended up buying from her were coming from. It’s one of my favorite things about Google Analytics – there’s great information about what your visitors do right before they become customers!

But no. There was no data for me to dig my teeth into. Why? Because she didn’t know how to set up Goals in Google Analytics.

Yes, I could look at how visitors were finding her site in general terms, but that can only take you so far! It’s really common to get a lot of traffic from a specific source (like Facebook, for example) but those people don’t end up buying from you. It’s not always Facebook, but it typically happens.

If you don’t have Goals set up, there’s a lot of info you’re missing out on. The biggest problem, though, is that you can’t see what websites or sources (social or otherwise) are making you the most money.

And when it comes to upping your game and taking a good thing (your business) and making it brilliant, this is THE piece of information you need act on.

So I want you to take about 6 minutes and set up your Goals in Google Analytics. You’re going to need:

A Google Analytics account.

(If you don’t have one yet, bookmark this post and put it on your calendar to come back here. Then click here to learn how to set up your Google Analytics account, or shoot me a message and I can help you out.)

The url of the “thank you” page for this specific conversion.

When I go to your site and sign up for your newsletter or free content, I’m directed to a page that says “Success! You’re all signed up, just go check your inbox” or something like that. Same thing happens when I buy your product – I see some kind of confirmation page. This is what I call the “thank you page.”

Go and opt-in to your own newsletter, or do a test purchase of your product. Now look at the url of the thank you page – is it one of YOUR pages, a page on your website? If so, skip right to the video below because you’re good to go.

Or is your thank you page on a Mailchimp, Aweber, or other external domain page?

Example of a Mailchimp Domain

If this is the case of your thank you page, do not despair. You can throw together a super-simple page in 5 minutes on Wordpress. All you need is some copy that says “thanks!” and maybe a reminder to check their email or whatever next action they need to take.

Once you’ve got that page together, make sure your Mailchimp or Paypal or whoever’s involved send people to that page after the opt-in or purchase and not some other page on their domain.

Now let’s do this.

Get pumped – you’re gonna be so happy with yourself in just a minute. Now click play on this baby:

YouTube video

That wasn’t so hard, was it?

Here’s how to see if your Goal is tracking correctly:

  1. Mark your calendar for 1 week from now and come back here to this blog post (paste the link in the calendar reminder so that it’s easy to access).
  2. Open up your Google Analytics and make it look exactly like this by clicking on these various menus:
    Example of a Google Analytics account with goals set up correctly
  3. Follow my instructions in the video to make sure you can see that info about where your conversions are coming from.

And you’re good!

Got any questions for me? Having any trouble getting your Goals set up? Not sure which conversions you need to be tracking?

Make sure you let me know in the comments section so I can get all those questions answered! ↙