Set up these two goals for your service industry so you can track the leads that come in!

Google Analytics goals are the metrics that Google tracks to give you insights into your website traffic. They are a powerful way to track your marketing efforts and measure the success of your website.

These goals can be anything, but we recommend lead form submissions and calls from your website. If you want to get the most out of Google Analytics, a little bit of setup work needs to happen before you start tracking anything!

If you’re trying to get more performance from your site, Google Analytics goals can help. This blog post will cover two insider tips for Google Analytics goals that will give your service-based business an edge over the competition!

2 Google Analytics goals for success

Service-based industries rely on a steady flow of leads from their website. These fall into two main categories: calls from the website and form submissions.

Form submissions

The key to form submissions is a separate thank you page that the user gets redirected to after filling out the form. By measuring who sees this particular page, website managers can determine how often the website has form submissions.

The associated Google Analytics goal relies on a page view of this thank you page. Since accessing the page occurs after form submission, it’s a high-quality tracker of how often users send their information. 

In the Google Analytics goal section of the setup, select when someone views a page. Then, set the page to the corresponding thank you page.

Now, every time someone views that page, they’re counted as a conversion!

Calls from the website

Calls from your website are the other quantity you should measure. You can accomplish this in two main ways: call tracking software or Google tag manager to track whoever clicks on a link to contact your service-based company.

Since call tracking software requires a subscription, most of our clients opt for the Google tag manager approach, which is free. The downside? Clicking on the phone number triggers a goal completion, regardless if they went through with the call.

But, we believe anyone clicking the phone number has a high level of intent, so there’s a good chance they’ll be calling soon. Therefore, it’s a reasonable proxy for an actual lead.

Setting up the Google Analytics goal for a tag from Google tag manager requires measuring an event determined in tag manager. The event is whenever someone clicks on a link containing “tel:” on your website.

A problem when importing events from Google tag manager

When setting up Google tag manager events as a Google Analytics goal, we run into problems with the required precision. For example, the available fields for the Google Analytics goal must match the exact, case-sensitive fields in tag manager.

A persistent issue arises when copying the fields from Google tag manager. Because there is data from tag manager, formatted for tag manager—anything in double brackets {{xyz}}—importing this data into Analytics makes the Google Analytics goal not work.

It’s a minor consideration, but if your Google Analytics goal isn’t working while the event continues firing, this could be the issue.

Goal and conversion measurement

Measuring calls from the website and lead form submissions aren’t just a crucial part of Google Analytics goals—they’re also essential for Google Ads conversion tracking!

By setting up the metrics as your conversions for your pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, you’re providing Google’s algorithm with the type of information you want your account optimized for in the future.

For digital marketers in charge of both search engine optimization and PPC campaigns, be wary of double-counting conversions.

A simple reporting tip is to subtract all of the conversions you received on your campaigns from the numbers displayed from your Google Analytics goals. This step leaves you with the Google Analytics goals that came exclusively from the website.

Google Analytics goals with Algorithmic Global

Google Analytics goals require a bit of setup, but it’s important to remember that you can’t tweak what you can’t measure. Service-based industries focused on lead generation should set up their Google Analytics goals to measure calls from the website and lead form submissions.

Be careful when setting up the two data sources, and double-check that your goals are firing before leaving them to collect data.

If you are a service-based industry interested in measuring your website’s performance, consider setting up the appropriate Google Analytics goals for continued tracking. Algorithmic Global’s digital marketing experts can help ensure you’re getting the most from your website—give us a call or reach out via our contact page, and we’ll get you set up with our industry-leading customer service!