How to set up "Goal" for Google Analytics tracking of new registrations?

bzcomputers

bzcomputers

Well-known member
I assume there are at least of few of you out there tracking new registrations on Google Analytics.

My search has not come up with anything recent and this last thread (from over 4 years ago) example does not seem to work.

Seems like setting up a "Goal" for Xenforo would be pretty straight forward, but i haven't had any luck yet getting results.
 
I was finally able to get this to work...

Two things to keep in mind with my personal setup:
  1. I use friendly urls
  2. I have Xenforo installed in the "community" subdirectory
If your installation setup is different than mine you may need to make some slight changes.

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I set up 2 goals one for "New Registrations" and one for "Account Activations". This way you can easily compare them within a single analytics widget.

"New Registrations" goal settings look like:

new-registrations.jpg



"Account Activations" goal settings look like:
(note the red circled setting below: this is to ensure the goal is still identified when the confirmation url end includes additional information like subdirectories and query strings, which it will)

account-activations.jpg



Then you can create a custom dashboard widget like this:

analytics-widget.webp
 
I'm surprised this isn't a more robustly discussed / fleshed-out topic! Google Analytics is super powerful, but only really shines when proper goals are setup.

We're only as effective as our ability to track / measure performance, and that's hard to do without clear goals and the ability to analyze the statistics.

Registration is a pretty major goal, so I'd love to setup a VERY reliable way to do this.

I want to use goals in Google Analytics to track registrations from various traffic sources, campaigns, etc.

... unfortunately the best I could come up with was using the registration page as a proxy for conversions / goals... but it's clearly not a 1-to-1 with people actually successfully registering.

@bzcomputers thanks for putting this together. How has it been working for you?

One question I have: Isn't there a "break" between registration and confirmation? For example:
  1. User comes to random page via Facebook
  2. Google Analytics tracks FB as the referrer
  3. User navigates to registration page
  4. "Registration page" Goal is triggered in GA
  5. User leaves site and then goes into email, gets registration email, confirms registration, triggers "confirmation" goal.
  6. Wouldn't GA now track that user as coming from email and attribute that goal to email and NOT FB?
I'm very possibly missing something important, but it sure would be great to track legit registrations by source, etc. via Google Analytics.
 
I currently don't track registration source, just the numbers. I don't believe there is any way currently (that I can think of) to easily setup the automatic tracking of registrations by original source (referrer).

The easiest way I can think of to get this info without a lot of headache is to just ask the user that question when they register. "Where did you originally here about us?" or "How did you find us?" or something similar.

As for how my original method above has been working since implementing a year ago, its been great.

For example, here is a site I run ...although I wouldn't recommend running a travel related forum during a pandemic, as you can plainly see below. Over the last four months I have wished, on multiple occasions, I didn't have such easy access to these numbers. In the graph below you will see an obvious spike in travel interest right at the beginning of the pandemic when people were actively discussing, changing and canceling travel plans, then a quick downfall from there as everyone stopped making travel plans for the near future. Eventually the site depicted below will be back at pre-pandemic numbers but it'll take some time. This graph below could also be placed right over this same site's graphs for total page views and income and the data plots would all match up quite well.

account-activations.webp
 
Thanks for the info. I have a question about a funnel. You have just one step Register. But my visitors can register or hit the " Register faster using Facebook" button. How to set it up to track those two ways?
 
bzcomputers said:
I currently don't track registration source, just the numbers. I don't believe there is any way currently (that I can think of) to easily setup the automatic tracking of registrations by original source (referrer).
Click to expand...
Ah, that makes a lot of sense, thanks!!

So, it sounds like my approach is the best option... using hits to the "registration" page as a proxy for registrations.

For example, the ratio of ACP stats "User registrations" to people that hit the "/register/" page (goal) is about 70%, so I can use that as a rough-estimate across all comparisons.

... but even without that, I still get an apples to apples comparison to which channels are helping me hit my registration goals.

This is especially helpful as I start paying for ads on facebook, pinterest, etc., to help get more members registered.

Example, here are goal conversion rates from various referrers... I should definitely be working on getting more traffic from some than others!
1593986955545.webp
 
Anatoliy said:
Thanks for the info. I have a question about a funnel. You have just one step Register. But my visitors can register or hit the " Register faster using Facebook" button. How to set it up to track those two ways?
Click to expand...

Those who sign up using another account (Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc) still hit the "/register" screen to start and finish at the "/register/complete" screen, so they are already tracked by the method above.

If you're asking about getting the tracking numbers of each login type individually, like how many Google Login Users, Facebook Login Users, etc - I don't track that. I just want to have an accurate look at the overall totals with Google Analytics.
 
Biarritz64 said:
It can be possible using tag manager?
www.lovesdata.com

Google Tag Manager Button Click Tracking Guide

You can use Google Tag Manager to track button clicks into Google Analytics without needing to modify the code on your website. I’m going to walk you through tracking clicks on a button used in a form, but you can use the same technique for…
www.lovesdata.com www.lovesdata.com
Click to expand...
Not sure, connected account usage is not something I cared to track. Having those numbers, for me, really wouldn't change anything as far as site development.

Someone else may have more info.
 
Thanks for this guide. Is there a lag time with the goals recording data? I set them up verbatim but they're not collecting data as I tried a test registration and it didn't fire. Even confirmed the destinations were being seen on the Realtime Active Users report.
 
Svoboda said:
Thanks for this guide. Is there a lag time with the goals recording data? I set them up verbatim but they're not collecting data as I tried a test registration and it didn't fire. Even confirmed the destinations were being seen on the Realtime Active Users report.
Click to expand...

The numbers for me show up almost immediately. You may have Google Analytics setup to ignore your IP address.
 
Thanks. For whatever reason, there was a bit of lag on my end. The next day they showed my test registrations.
 
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