Google Analytics: Difference Between Goal Conversions & Goal Completions
-
When using Google Analytics, what is the difference between total goal conversions and total goal completions?
We have many goals set up in a lead generation environment. Therefore, the only element of conversion is submitted a lead and arriving on the "Thank You" page. THose thank you pages are tagged accordingly.
When we run reports though, the number of "Total Goal Conversions" and "Total Goal Completions" never match up.
-
Completions: The total number of completions for the requested goal number
Total Completions: The total number of completions for all goals defined for your profile.
Conversion Rate: (ga:goal(n)Completions / ga:visits) * 100
Total Conversion Rate: (ga:goalCompletionsAll / ga:visits) * 100
Reference: http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/gdata/dimsmets/goalconversions.html
-
Thanks for the response, Martijn. I've edited the initial Q&A post to better describe the situation we're evaluating.
-
Hi,
Cool question, because a similar question around the definition of one of Google Analytics metrics was discussed last weekend at the Q&A. The difference between this two metrics lies in the fact that one is related to a specific goal and one isn't:
Total Goal Conversions: "The number of goals completed by visitors.".
Total Goal Completions: "The total number of visitors who have completed all elements defined for this particular goal.".As you can see, the second definition is clearly for the completions of 1 specific goal. The other one is for all the goals combined. I have to admit that it's a bit tricky, but with this definition next to you hopefully it will help you any further!
Happy analyzing!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Google Analytics Custom Alert For Goal Completions?
Hi currently setting up custom alerts for a website. I want to do a custom alerts for when goal completions decrease or increase by a certain % e.g. 20% as shown in the third example from this Moz Article back in 2012 - http://moz.com/blog/7-essential-google-intelligence-custom-alerts-that-keep-me-sane However when i go into my GA account the only options seem to be for when the goal completion conversion rate % drops. I could use this, but i rather do just based on completions rather than %. Any ideas on how i can do this? Thanks.
Reporting & Analytics | | MBASydney0 -
Google Analytics Events that lead to Goals (conversions)
Hello! I'm in the process of setting up Events in Google Analytics to track the performance of banner ads on our site. While that will take care of the action performed by the visitor (i.e. the click on the banner), it doesn't tell me if the visitor ultimately completed the form where the banner ad directs them (which is set up as one of out site's Goals). Once the Event is in place, will I be able to track the Goal conversions that it leads to? It's nice that Events will tell me which banner drove someone to the form, but if I'm not able to see if that Event led to a Goal conversion it seems like something will be missing. So, is this something that's already available within Goals or Events reporting, or is there an additional step I need to take? Thanks in advance for your feedback! Erik
Reporting & Analytics | | SmileMoreSEO0 -
Can i know trough Google analytics the most busy time in the day ?
Hello guys,
Reporting & Analytics | | WayneRooney
I have a website with around 600-650 visitor a day.
Can i know trough Google analytics the most busy time in the day ? Thank you0 -
Best top 5 actionable insights from Google Analytics
Buongiorno from 14 degrees C cloudy wetherby UK 🙂 With a whole gamut of books out there are written around the topic of "Actionable Web analytics" where you have to wade through chapters of how to suck eggs and how to get analytics part of your business culture (whatever! most clients who look after their websites are entry level Marketing Execs who pay the digital agencies to do the thinking for them) I'd like to cut to the chase and list out say a top 5 of actionable insights a client would actually give the time of day for so heres my top five, whats yours? 1. Landing page bounce - showing them the £5k landing page designed with no conversion thinking is turning off customers
Reporting & Analytics | | Nightwing
2. Synching up PPC campaigns to analytics and showing them how much money they are waisting
3. Goal funnels - Showing them there 20 step shopping conversion funnel gets abandoned at step 3
4. Non brand keyword traffic (although a stack of this gets blocked by "not provided" Big groan...)
5. Event tracking on there 10 page carousel anner showing them no one clicks on banners 2 - 10 So under the strict label of "Actionable data only" from Google analytics whats your best insights you share with clients in the hope that they may actually give data reports the time of day! Grazie tanto,
David1 -
If I install google Analytics, that can affect my SEO.?
I purchased a site that has a lot of Backlinks and when I started to make changes like installing google analytics! i suspect the performance in search engine was getting worst because of that, so I removed.
Reporting & Analytics | | pparma
Now I'm trying MOZ and needs GA, should I install it again??
Maybe it analyces the backlinks and tells google, I don't know, is that possible?0 -
Google Analytics - In-Page Analytics
I had a strange thought waking up this morning, and was curious to hear other people's opinions on it. In Google Analytics, under Content > In-Page Analytics, Google shows what links on your site pages get clicked and how many times plus other metrics. Do you think they use that data for ranking back links so-to-speak? What I mean is, say I had a back link to my site on example.com, and example.com had google analytics installed. Google can see through google analytics whether my link has been clicked on. Say that my link gets no clicks, do you think that Google would use that metric against my site deeming it "not popular" or "not a good resource", even if example.com was a very popular site? And it could work the other way. Say my link got thousands of clicks on example.com, do you think that Google might use that to promote my site? I couldn't find any other discussion on this anywhere, so am not sure if people have already thought about this.
Reporting & Analytics | | THB0 -
SEOMoz crawls skewing Avg Visit Duration in Google Analytics
Hello, We are a UK based company. Our Google Analytics account is showing a rise in Avg Visit Duration for 'Direct traffic' since we started using SEOMoz. Are any other users experiencing this issue? We tracked it down to City Seattle, and when doing an Advanced filter by removing Seattle, the results are normal again. What does SEOMoz or other users recommend we do besides continuously using advanced filters? We have enquired about excluding Roger's IP address, but have been told that Roger uses the Amazon cloud, so the IP is not static. See attachment for screenshot of our Google Analytics account of Avg Visit Duration since we began with SEOMoz. Rich Talbot 718g3.gif
Reporting & Analytics | | STL1 -
Why is a section of our website dropping in&out of Google SERPs?
In July 2011 we started a news section that has it's own 'subfolder' /news/ (http://www.chorder.com/news/new_gear/, http://www.chorder.com/news/gear_deals/ etc.) The whole news section is dropping in&out of Google SERP's since late October, as show in attached graph. All news texts are real deal, written by our own staff, linked from homepage. Any idea why this happens and how to prevent it? cmqky.png
Reporting & Analytics | | imventurer0