8 Goal and Ecommerce Tracking
As first discussed in Chapter 2, “Google Analytics Reporting Overview,” Google Analytics (GA) does not populate the Conversions reports at all until you take either or both of the following steps:
- tell GA which existing pageview or event actions constitute a goal conversion
- provide additional Ecommerce data beyond pageview and event tracking
In either case, you’re enabling GA to measure success according to the specific key performance indicators (KPIs) that you identified for your website or mobile app as discussed in Chapter 3, “Measurement Strategy.”
It’s critical to configure goals and/or Ecommerce so your analytics can clearly tell you if your users are achieving these objectives.
Goal Tracking
In the following example, we set up a goal for a health tips email newsletter signup on a health insurance provider website—this is a primary action that the company executives and website designers want visitors to take, so we’re going to track it as a goal.
As we configure our goals, we need to consider four options:
- goal type
- match type (for Destination goals only)
- funnel or no funnel (for Destination goals only)
- goal value
We discuss each of these considerations in the next sections.
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