How to setup Google Analytic goals that go to different urls?
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I would like to setup my form's conversion rate as a goal in my Google Analytics account. The goal is complete when someone enters their information and hits submit. Logically, the "Thank you page" would be the destination url for the goal. My problem is that the thank you page is outside of the primary domain, for example, my site is:
SiteExampl.com but the Thank you URL is thankyouurl.com
Is it possible to setup a goal like this? If so how.
Thanks in advance!
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Virtual pageviews is in fact the way to go with this. With a virtual pageview setup, your form tag would look something like this:
<form action="x.something" onsubmit="_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/submitted-form/']);">
That way, when the form is submitted, it will track a pageview of '/submitted-form/'. You can then create your goal looking for pageviews of that URL.
The main potential obstacle with this approach is form validation. If your form uses JavaScript for validation, then you need to integrate the virtual pageview code into the validation code, which can get complicated. If your form uses server side validation, this method also isn't great - because if the user submits the form and it returns an error, the virtual pageview will still be triggered, incorrectly converting the goal.
</form>
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I've read the "Virtual Pageviews" but am still having some trouble understanding. I have the code form embedded on the site, so where would I add the Async Snippet? Thanks
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If I don't have access to the thank you url to add the form code what is the best solution?
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Hi Christina,
There are multiple options to go with in this case, the first would be to also add the tracking code to the thank your URL page, then you could link to that page with some extra data to make sure cross domain tracking works. This would probably be the easiest solution.
Besides that if you're lucky the form only redirects to the new URL is successful, what you then could do is before you redirect fire an extra virtual pageview to track a successful request and check it from within your domain. See here for more information on 'virtual' pageviews.
Let me know if you have any more questions on this.
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