Turning a Click Event into a Goal

There are times when it makes sense to capture the click event as a goal inside of a web analytics solution like Google Analytics 360. Here are some scenarios where this makes sense:

1. You submit a form on a Contact Us page and the URL does not change when you get to the next page.
2. Determining if an e-mail address on a Contact Us page ever gets clicked.
3. Tracking downloads of a white paper in PDF format.

Here is how you would ask your implementation or support staff to deal with each scenario:

1. If the original form code was something like this:
   
   Then it would get updated to look like this:
   The onSubmit function has been added and it features code that tells Google Analytics that a certain page (whether it exists or not) has been viewed. Then you would set your goal URL to be /contact_us_form_submitted.
   A more advanced application of this technique is if you have several forms leading to one thank you page, then you can determine which forms caused what number of conversions.
2. If the original e-mail code was something like this:
   sales@domain.com
   Then it would get updated to look like this:
   sales@domain.com
   The onClick function has been added and it features code that tells Google Analytics that a certain page (again, it does not matter if it exists) has been viewed. Then you can set one of your unused goals to /email_click.htm.
   A more advanced application of this technique would allow you to determine what e-mail address was clicked on (support@domain.com rather than sales@domain.com) and also which page the click occured on.
3. If the original link to download the PDF was something like this:
   Research Summary for March 31, 2007
   Then it would get updated to look like this:
   Research Summary for March 31, 2007
   The onClick function has been added and it features code that tells Google Analytics that a certain page (once more, it does not matter at all if it actually exists) has been viewed. Then you can set of your unused goals to /pdf_download.htm.
   A more advanced application of this technique would allow you to determine what pdf was downloaded and also which page the click occured on.

Have any more questions about turning click actions into goals? Want to know more about the advanced techniques mentioned for each scenario? Contact us today with all your web analytics implementation questions!