Tracking Events on Google Analytics

Updated November 25, 2021

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Not sure if you’re business networking efforts are actually fruitful? Or, want to see if your outbound sales’ efforts are impacting your online sales funnel? Well, there’s a way to track events to your online stats via Google Analytics Annotations.

Annotations are a way to chronicle activities like trade shows, new product launches, a video upload, or a seasonal PPC ad campaign.  In Google Analytics, you can add notes so you can track marketing efforts and correlate to web data. If you’re new to GA, this 1 minute video explains just how easy it is.

For those Google Analytics accounts with multiple users, you can add annotations and determine if it’s public (anyone with access can see) or keep it private (only available to your user account).

Google Analytics Best Practices

As you become more familiar with Google Analytics, here are few things to try:

1. Add an event even if you don’t see an immediate spike in traffic. A sustainable rise in online visits may be more profitable in the long run.
2. Track posts and other links so you can determine which Social Media platforms actually drive traffic to your site.
3. Carefully evaluate bounce rates. A typical target should be in the 25-35% range, depending upon the industry.
4. Set your bounce rate sensitivity. One minute is too long, one second is too short. You want to accurately determine how many visitors land on your site, take a quick peek and leave. This provides much-needed feedback on how to optimize your site.
5. Segment traffic with User Defined Reports. This feature allows you to label a website visitor when they complete a desired action on your site (e.g., fill out a form).
6. Set up goals and funnels. That’s for a GA power user. Goals will help you recognize how well your website is performing. For example, you’ll want to track key actions like:
   • Email or newsletter sign ups
   • White paper downloads
   • Completed contact forms

   What other inventive ways do you track offline efforts and correlate them to online performance?