To achieve anything in life, you need to set goals. Google Analytics isn’t any different. By setting up goals in Google Analytics, not only are you making sure that your website KPIs are in line with your business goals, but you’re also making sure that you have clearer insight into the actions a user takes before completing those goals.
Conversion Rates
You have 4,392 sessions to your website and out of those 4,392 sessions you had 51 sessions where a user signed up for your newsletter. That means your conversion rate is…involving too much math. Luckily for you, when you set up goals in Google Analytics, this conversion rate is automatically calculated for you.
The conversion rate you see in Google Analytics is really beneficial if you’re using a last click or last non-direct click attribution model. Last click or last non-direct click attribution models refers to the last channel or last non-direct channel a user visited before they converted. Last click and last non-direct click models can give you a great idea of which channels are closers, which devices close faster, and more.
The Multi-Channel Funnel
If you’re you’re curious to see how people are interacting with you across all channels before converting, then the multi-channel funnel is for you. This report shows more than just which channels are the closers. This report can show you what started someone thinking about your product before they eventually converted.
The information that you get from the multi-channel funnel report is only available if you enable goals in Google Analytics. Even more gnarly, if you’ve been paying attention to my millions and millions of posts about UTM coding, you can get an idea of how people are interacting with your individual messages across channels.
In my opinion, the multi channel funnel report combined with UTM coding is one of the most valuable aspects of Google Analytics because it tells you what to say to a customer, when to say it, and where to say it.
Retargeting
I won’t say the “r” word (retargeting) too loud for fear of the GDPR boogeymen coming to get me in my sleep, but if you’re keeping track of who has completed a goal on your website, you are also by default keeping track of those who have NOT completed a goal on your website. This gives you a great pool for people to re-pitch to, fine-tuning your message and A/B testing to help get a sale.
Retargeting isn’t only for small conversions. Retargeting can also help you if you have a much bigger product to sell or a much longer sales cycle. By setting up both small and big goals in Google Analytics (for example, sign up for our newsletter and fill out a request for a sales member to contact you), you can retarget those who have completed the smaller goal, as they’re often more likely to complete a larger goal.
Keeping the same KPIs across Google Ads and Google Analytics
As the old saying goes, don’t let the fox guard the hen house. By adding goals in Google Analytics and then importing them into Adwords, you can ensure you have the same KPIs (key performance indicators) for both your paid and organic campaigns.
This isn’t to say that you should always use the same KPIs across every medium. For example, display campaigns, which are mainly used to create awareness and not to convert users, so you would want to measure the success of a display campaigns by looking at the number of impressions. However, an apples to apples comparison may help give you a gut check on the successfulness of any given campaign.
Summary
Between not having to manually calculate your conversion rates by dividing the number of goal completions over the number of sessions, seeing how users interact across your different marketing mediums, retargeting those who haven’t completed the desired action on your website, and having an apples to apples comparison of success across mediums, goals in Google Analytics are a no brainer. Check on my other posts on how to set up goals, and you’ll be showing the ROI for your marketing efforts in no time.