What is a Goal?
In web analytics, a Goal is a user-defined success condition that turns raw interactions into business outcomes. When a visitor completes the desired action—e.g., purchase, signup, demo request—the system records a goal completion (often a Conversion). Under event-based systems, a goal is typically a rule applied to an Event that marks it as a conversion.
How goals work
Most tools evaluate goals on top of sessions and events. A goal can be triggered by a specific Pageview (e.g., /thank-you), an event parameter (e.g., event_name=signup_success), or thresholds such as engagement or value. Historically, Universal Analytics offered goal types like destination, duration, and Pages Per Session. Modern stacks (GA4, Plausible, Matomo, Simple Analytics) are event-driven: you send an event and mark it as a goal/conversion.
Setup (practical)
- Identify business outcomes: split into Macro-Conversion (revenue-driving) and Micro-Conversion (intent signals).
- Instrument: fire an event at the exact success moment via Tag Management or the Measurement Protocol / tracking API.
- Configure: define the goal rule (event name, properties, or URL) and mark it as a conversion.
- Verify: use Real-Time Data to QA, then compare counts with backend.
- Analyze: monitor goal count, value, and Conversion Rate across channels using Attribution and campaign tagging (UTM).
Tool nuances (quick map)
- GA4: there is no “Goal” object—any event can be marked as a conversion.
- Matomo: supports explicit “Goals” with URL or event-based conditions (via Matomo Tag Manager/API).
- Plausible: create custom events, then define “Goals” that reference those events.
- Simple Analytics: configure Events and declare selected ones as Goals.