Google Analytics has so much to offer that trying to get the most out of it can be pretty overwhelming. With so many options and so much data, it can be easy to overlook and miss out on some of its greatest resources.
One tool that’s relatively new to Google Analytics yet undeniably useful is Custom Alerts. Under the home tab and the intelligence events overview section, there are a number of automatic alerts as well as a place to create your own custom alerts.
Custom alerts are a great way to stay on top of your analytics without having to constantly monitor them. Simply set up a segment of traffic and a condition and Google Analytics will shoot you an email or a text whenever that condition is met.
This can be used to monitor site traffic, goal conversions, referrals, and more. Here is a list of four custom alerts that can help in your search engine optimization efforts.
Search Engine Traffic
Since the main goal of SEO is to gain more search engine traffic, setting up a custom alert for changes in search referrals is a must. Below is what your conditions should look like if you are setting up an alert for a decrease in referrals from Google. You probably want to add an alert for an increase in referrals as well.
Keyword Traffic
If you have a couple of keywords that drive a significant amount of traffic to your website, you can set up custom alerts to keep an eye on the traffic coming from them. If there is a significant increase or sizeable spike, an alert will let you know so you can identify the cause.
Goal Conversions
Because ROI is so important when it comes to any type of marketing, you want to stay on top of the number of leads or conversions you are getting. You can set up alerts for the total number of conversions or your conversion rate to notify you if the number of conversions isn’t lining up with the amount of traffic you are getting.
Brand Monitoring
Sometimes it can be difficult to monitor responses to your branding efforts, but there is an easy way to monitor how often your brand is being searched. Set up a custom alert for your brand name that will tip you off if organic searches for your brand increase or decrease by 20% from week to week or month to month. This will give you an idea of the effectiveness of your branding overall.
