For most people, Google Analytics is not a fun place to be.

But if you aren’t tracking key activities in Google Analytics, there’s a good chance you don’t know how well each marketing channel is performing.

Since Google Analytics can be super daunting to people less acquainted, let’s pick a single focus for the sake of clarity.

The most important thing to track in Google Analytics is incoming leads. 

One caveat, however. It’s never a perfect science tracking incoming leads in Google Analytics, which is why you should also keep an authoritative list in your CRM.

Every phone inquiry, chat conversation, tour booked, member sign up etc., should go into your CRM by whoever receives the inquiry. It’s a manual process, but it ensures nothing gets missed.

As far as automatically tracking your incoming leads on your website (and thereby knowing where they came from), below are the most common areas to track using “Goals” in Google Analytics.

1. Contact Forms

All contact forms should bring you to a “thank you” confirmation page which is tracked as a “Destination Goal” in Google Analytics. There are other ways to track it but this is the easiest.

2. Scheduled Tours

Like the contact forms, prospects should be redirected to a thank you page on your website and tracked with a destination goal in Google Analytics.

3. Chat Inquiries

I love Drift. Of all the chat widgets I’ve tried, this one works the best.

Drift integrates directly with Google Analytics to let you see the number of Conversations Started and the number of Email Addresses Captured. It’s gold for getting and tracking leads.

4. Telephone Calls

There are various methods of call tracking. However, not all calls are leads. So what do you do?

Personally, I only track calls that come from Google Ads and specific marketing campaigns using a tool called CallRail.

CallRail automatically finds and replaces all telephone numbers on your website with a local or toll-free tracking number, but only when someone visits your site from an online ad or pre-defined campaign.

Those calls get recorded as “Goal Conversions” in Google Analytics for easy measurement once you set it up.

Regular calls from people will not get tracked with CallRail. If someone visits the site directly, they’ll see the regular telephone number which doesn’t get measured by CallRail. That means you and your staff should be diligent about adding ALL inquiries that come in via telephone to your CRM as well. It’s the only way to know your true number of leads.

5. New Member Registrations, Trial Registrations, Purchases

When someone signs up for any of your services, track it in Google Analytics if you can. This is the highest-value goal you have, so tracking it over time is extremely valuable.

See that? No leaky ship here!

Anything that doesn’t get tracked by Google will be tracked in your CRM through diligent input by you and your staff. Don’t miss this step!

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