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How to Enable Goals in Google Analytics

Cody Schneider•

Setting up Goals in Google Analytics is the first step toward understanding if your website is actually working. Without them, you're just looking at traffic metrics, with them, you’re measuring business performance. Fret not - this guide will walk you through setting up Goals in both a Universal Analytics property and a Google Analytics 4 property, so you can track the specific user actions that lead to business success.

What Are Google Analytics Goals and Why Do They Matter?

In a nutshell, a Goal is a completed activity, called a conversion, that is important to the success of your business. These aren't just vanity metrics like pageviews or session duration. They are tangible actions that signify a user is moving closer to becoming a customer or a well-engaged reader. Examples of goals include:

  • Making a purchase

  • Submitting a lead-generation form

  • Signing up for a newsletter

  • Requesting a demo

  • Downloading a PDF guide

  • Watching an important video

Tracking these actions transforms Google Analytics from a general traffic report into a powerful business tool. Goals allow you to see exactly which marketing channels (like organic search, paid ads, or email) are driving conversions, what content on your site is most effective, and where users might be dropping off in your sales funnel.

How to Create Goals in Universal Analytics (UA)

Many websites still use or have historical data in Universal Analytics, so it's valuable to know how to set goals up here. UA offers four main goal types that cover most common tracking needs.

Understanding the 4 Universal Analytics Goal Types

  1. Destination: This is the most common and useful goal type. It tracks a conversion when a user lands on a specific page, like a "thank-you.html" page after completing a purchase or a "/form-submitted" page after filling out a contact form.

  2. Duration: This goal tracks user engagement by measuring how long they stay on your site. For example, you could set a goal for any session that lasts longer than five minutes, indicating a highly engaged visitor.

  3. Pages/Screens per session: Similar to Duration, this tracks engagement. You can set it to trigger when a user views a certain number of pages (e.g., more than 5 pages in a session), which is often a goal for content-heavy websites like blogs or news sites.

  4. Event: This is a more advanced goal type used for tracking user interactions that don’t involve loading a new page. Think button clicks ("Add to Cart"), video plays, or file downloads. This type requires setting up Event Tracking separately via Google Tag Manager or custom code.

Step-by-Step Guide to Setting Up a Destination Goal in UA

Let’s walk through creating the most common goal: a destination goal for a contact form submission that redirects users to a /thank-you page.

Step 1: Navigate to the Admin SectionLog in to your Google Analytics account. Click the Admin gear icon in the bottom-left corner of the page.

Step 2: Go to GoalsIn the Admin panel, you'll see three columns: Account, Property, and View. In the rightmost column, under View, click on Goals.

Step 3: Create a New GoalClick the red + NEW GOAL button. You’ll be taken to the goal setup screen. You will see some template options like 'Make a Payment' or 'Create an account.' For the most control, a better course of action is to select Custom at the bottom of the list and click Continue.

Step 4: Configure Your Goal Details

  • Name your goal: Give it a clear, descriptive name that your whole team can understand. Something like "Contact Form Submission" works great.

  • Select goal type: Choose Destination and click Continue.

Step 5: Define the Goal DestinationThis is where you tell Google Analytics which page view counts as a conversion.

  • In the Destination field, select "Begins with" from the dropdown.

  • In the text box next to it, enter the page path that users see after submitting the form. This is the part of the URL that comes after your domain. For www.yoursite.com/thank-you, you would enter /thank-you.

Pro Tip: Use "Begins with" rather than "Equals to." This prevents issues if your URL ever has tracking parameters added to it (e.g., /thank-you?utm_source=email). If you used "Equals to," the goal would not fire.

Step 6: (Optional but Recommended) Set a Goal Value and FunnelThis step is where Analytics starts showing ROI.

  • Value: If you can assign a monetary value to a goal, toggle this 'On.' For example, if you know that one out of every 10 leads becomes a customer worth $500, then you could assign a value of $50 to each contact form submission.

  • Funnel: A funnel lets you track the specific steps a user takes before reaching the goal page. For instance, if a user has to go from Contact page > Form page > Thank You page, you could add the first two steps to see where people are abandoning the process.

Step 7: Save Your GoalBefore you save, click the "Verify this Goal" link beneath the configuration. This feature will use your data from the past 7 days to estimate the conversion rate. If it shows 0.00%, double-check your destination URL, as you may have made a typo. Once you're satisfied, click Save. Congratulations, your goal is now active.

The Shift: From Goals to Conversions in Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics 4 completely reimagines how conversions are tracked. The concepts of "Goals" and the four goal types are gone. In GA4, everything a user does is an event — from viewing a page (page_view event) to scrolling down the page (scroll event).

A "goal" in GA4 is simply any event that you have marked as a conversion.

This event-based model is far more flexible. You are no longer limited to 20 goals per view like in UA. In GA4, you can mark up to 30 events per property as conversions. The setup process is different, but in some ways, it's even simpler.

Step-by-Step Guide to Enabling Conversions in GA4

There are two primary ways to set up conversions in GA4: marking an existing event as a conversion, or creating a new event and then marking it as a conversion.

Method 1: Toggling an Existing Event as a Conversion (Easiest)

GA4 automatically tracks many important events through its "Enhanced Measurement" feature, including file downloads and form interactions. You can simply tell GA4 that you consider one of these existing events to be a conversion.

  1. Navigate to the Admin section (gear icon in the bottom left).

  2. In the Property column, click on Events.

  3. You will see a list of all event names your site is collecting. Suppose you've configured an event named generate_lead.

  4. Find that event in the "Existing events" table and toggle the switch in the "Mark as conversion" column to the on position.

That’s it! From now on, whenever the generate_lead event occurs, GA4 will also count it as a conversion. This event will now appear in your dedicated Conversions report.

Method 2: Create a New Event For a Destination Page (The UA "Destination Goal" Method)

What if you want a conversion for visiting a /thank-you page, like in the UA example?

Since this action wasn't a default event to track, you first need to create a new event that fires when someone views that page. Then mark that event as a conversion.

Step 1: Create a Custom Event

  1. Go to Admin > Events and click the Create event button. Then click Create.

  2. Custom event name: Use a clear, lowercase-with-underscores name, such as contact_form_success.

  3. Matching Conditions: Set the trigger:

    • Condition 1: event_name - equals - page_view

    • Condition 2: page_location - contains - /thank-you

This says: "When a page_view occurs and the URL contains /thank-you, create contact_form_success."

Step 2: Mark Your New Event as a ConversionYou have created the event, but GA4 doesn't recognize it as a conversion yet.

  • Wait up to 24 hours for the event to appear in the list of events.

  • Once visible, toggle Mark as conversion.

  • Alternatively, go to Admin > Conversions, click New conversion event, enter contact_form_success, and save.

Your "thank you" page now counts as a conversion.

Testing Your Conversions

Always test your setup:

  • Universal Analytics: Use the Real-Time > Conversions report. Complete the goal on your site in another tab and see if it fires.

  • Google Analytics 4: Use DebugView:

    1. Install the "Google Analytics Debugger" Chrome extension and turn it on.

    2. In GA4, navigate to Admin > DebugView.

    3. Complete the conversion action.

    4. Look for the event (contact_form_success) to appear. Conversion-marked events have a green flag.

Final Thoughts

Tracking site activity that measures your team’s impact is critical. GA defaults answer "what happened," but defining and monitoring goals allows you to answer "so what?"

To learn how to share access: how to share access to Google Analytics with others

Once connected to your ad platforms, CRM, and eCommerce, understanding the full picture can become a manual effort. That’s why we built Graphed: it connects all your sources in one dashboard, so you can ask plain English questions and get live reports instantly.