Tracking goals and conversions within Google Analytics is a key function for webmasters and site owners as it provides quantifiable feedback on how their website is performing, in regard to the business objectives that the site was developed to satisfy.

The Total Conversions report, provided with in the Goals tab provides web masters with a way to analyse when conversions have occurred. The information in this report can be viewed by number of conversions per day or number of conversions per hour. The information on this page is useful to for web masters that wish to determine when most goals are converted.

A hypothetical example of the Total Conversions report in action would see a website owner setting up a goal which relates to a user purchasing an official program (magazine) relating to an upcoming sporting event. The webmaster may notice a massive spike in purchases (conversions) on the day that the sporting event commences.

This report is can also be used by webmasters so they can visualize the affect of experimenting with different content and goal paths over time. 

In addition to the Total Conversions report, the Conversion Rate report provides a way to view the rate of conversions per day or rate of conversions per hour. Conversion Rate is calculated by dividing the number of conversions by the total number of visits. This report is more geared towards justifying whether the marketing, the site, and content are working together to achieve business objectives.

 Considerations

• In order to use the Total Conversions report effectively webmasters should take into consideration external events that are occurring that may increase/decrease conversions recorded at certain times, these include events such as the commencement of a sporting event or a change made to the site content.

Benefits for Different Business Sectors

Multi-National Corporations

• Multi-national corporations can use this report effectively to understand the days and times when they are generating most conversions if they have set up goals for each country correvtly

Domestic Corporations

• Domestic companies could use this report to gain an insight into when conversions are occurring on an hourly basis and tailor their marketing initiatives to suit (i.e If a company notices that it generating a significant number of conversions at about 5pm, each day they modify their Ad scheduling settings within Google AdWords to suit)