Analyze goals in custom reports

If you’re using goals in Analytics, you already know the power of that tool. It helps you see when, and if, your visitors are reaching certain pages, or perform certain tasks. For example, it can tell you when a person signed up for a trial, submitted a contact form, downloaded an ebook, or viewed a page with the offer.

Depending on the goal of your website, and your business, you may have different goals. For example, a goal for a website selling a SaaS product will be to start a trial. Yet, a goal for a blog of the same company will be to get familiar with the brand by reading an article.

Once you know your goals you can set them up in Analytics. Then you can analyze the goals using the goal report or custom reports. In this article, we’ll show you how to use custom reports to look through goals.

Before you start

Here are some things to know before you begin to work with goals and custom reports:

• There are two metrics and two dimensions used for goals: goal conversions, goal conversion rate, goal revenue, and goal name.
  • Goal conversions is the number of times when visitors achieved a goal. For example, if 120 people signed up for a trial on your website, the goal conversion will be 120.
  • Goal conversion rate is a percentage of sessions during which people achieved a goal. For example, if there were 1000 sessions on your website, and during 120 sessions visitors signed up for a trial, the goal conversion rate will be: 120/1000 = 0,12 (12%).
  • Goal revenue is a revenue defined for a goal. For example, if you find that signing up for a trial is worth $50 for your company, you can set up a goal revenue for $50. In the reports, you can see the sum of all goal revenues, or other metrics like a minimum value, maximum value, median, or average.
  • Goal name is the name that you gave to the goal.
• You can set up several goals, yet remember to name them uniquely.
• While analyzing goals in custom reports, don’t use the goal name as a dimension together with the goal conversion rate. The counting mechanism will limit data to sessions during which the goal was achieved and the goal conversion rate will always show 100%.

Create a custom report for all goals

First, we’ll create a report that will show us all goals, conversions and revenue.

To create a custom report for goals, follow these steps:

1. Go to Menu > Analytics.
2. Navigate to Custom reports.
3. Click Add new report.
4. Choose the following type: Flat table.
5. Name the report.
6. Set up visibility for this report. You can make it visible only for you or for all your teammates.
7. In the search bar, type in goal to filter out the dimensions and metrics used for goals.
   

   

8. To the left-hand table, drag and drop the following dimensions and metrics: goal name, goal conversion, goal revenue, and once again goal revenue.
   

   

   Tip: Don’t use the goal conversion rate for this case, as the counting mechanism will limit data to sessions during which the goal was achieved and the goal conversion rate will show 100% for each goal.

9. Click the Goal revenue drop-down menu and select Sum of goal revenue.
   

   

10. Click Create report.
11. View the report.
    

    

See which traffic channels result in goal conversions

In addition to the report with all goals, you can create a custom report that will show you channels and goal conversions. This combination of data will help you understand which traffic sources bring customers to your website.

To create a custom report for channel and goals metrics, follow these steps:

1. Go to Menu > Analytics.
2. Navigate to Custom reports.
3. Click Add new report.
4. Choose the following type: Flat table.
5. Name the report.
6. Set up visibility for this report. You can make it visible only for you or for all your teammates.
7. In the search bar, type in channel to filter out the channel dimensions.
8. Drag and drop the dimension to the left-hand table.
   

   

9. In the search bar, type in goal to filter out the dimensions and metrics used for goals.
10. To the left-hand table, drag and drop the following dimensions and metrics: goal conversion, goal conversion rate, goal revenue, and once again goal revenue.
    

    

11. Click the Goal conversion drop-down menu, and select a goal which you’d like to analyze. For example, a sign-up for a trial.
    

    

12. Click the Goal conversion rate drop-down menu, and select a goal which you’d like to analyze. For example, a sign-up for a trial.
13. Click the Goal revenue drop-down menu, and select a sum of goal revenue for the goal which you’d like to analyze. For example, a sign-up for a trial.
14. Click Create report.
15. View the report.
    

    

You can create this type of report for each goal you are tracking to find out which traffic channels are leading to conversions.