Set up Google Analytics alerts to
monitor your main KPIs
Updated: August 11th, 2020
Execution Time: ~30 minutes
Goal: To receive email notifications every time your web metrics change in a
meaningful way.
Ideal Outcome: You have a meaningful set of metrics that are consistently being
monitored and you’re alerted when any of them might require your further attention.
Prerequisites or requirements: N/A
Why this is important: Monitoring every single metric every day isn’t productive, and a
lot of times is also not possible due to time constraints. Having Google Analytics do that
for you every single day allows you to focus on what really matters.
Where this is done: In Google Analytics.
When this is done: Review your alerts quarterly, or every time you know you want to
monitor a new KPI.
Who does this: The person responsible for web analytics in your business.
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� Getting started
1) Open the ClickMinded SOP Library | Google Analytics Alerts Planning
spreadsheet. Go to “File → Make a copy” and make a copy of this document.
Now that you have a copy, use the spreadsheet as you follow along with this
SOP and start defining your metrics.
� Identify the core KPIs that you want to be alerted of
Note: For most of these metrics, you might want to break them down in specific
channels, devices, or any other dimension.
Note 2: Some of these metrics require you to already be tracking conversions on
your website, remember that you can only get alerts for metrics that you have
already set up and are already tracking on Google Analytics. If you haven’t done
so already follow SOP021-Setting up Conversion Goals in Google Analytics.
Sessions - Monitor variations in the number of sessions that you’re getting.
Example:
- X% increase on social media traffic - Allows you to monitor if one of your posts is
trending on a social network.
- X% increase from referrals - Allows you to monitor if you’ve been mentioned
somewhere on the web recently. (Conversely, an alert to monitor a decrease
would allow you to monitor if you lost mentions)
- X% decrease in organic traffic - Might mean you just lost some search rankings
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on your website.
- X% decrease in overall traffic - Alerts you that something might be wrong with
one (or more) of your channels and you should look deeper into it.
Bounce Rate - Monitor possible quality/speed/availability issues with your pages.
Example:
- X% increase in bounce rate from organic search - If your bounce rate increased
considerably you might want to take immediate action before you possibly start
seeing your rankings declining.
- X% increase in bounce rate from paid traffic - Might alert you for cases where
you’re sending traffic to the wrong landing pages, spending your budget
inefficiently.
Page Views: Monitor overall value, or page views to specific core pages (i.e. checkout
page, pricing, etc).
Average Page Load Time - Monitor possible server performance issues that might be
affecting your pages.
(Goal/Ecommerce) Conversion Rate - Monitor changes to your conversion rate.
Example:
- X% decrease in conversion rate from paid traffic
Revenue - Monitor revenue changes.
Transactions - Monitor changes in transaction amounts.
AOV - Monitor changes in average order value.
Custom Events
- 404 Pages
- CTA Clicks
- Lead Magnets Downloaded
- Checkout Views
- Any other custom events that you have set up in Google Analytics and are
relevant to your business.
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� Determine how frequently you want to be alerted
and under which conditions
1) For each KPI you defined above, determine whether it’s worth receiving an alert,
daily, weekly or monthly.
If you are unsure:
a) Check how that KPI changed daily overtime, for the last 60 days.
b) If you see that your KPI is usually stable like so, set it to daily:
c) If you see that your KPI is seasonal/unstable like so, set it to weekly or
monthly (whichever suits better to remove high instabilities):
Remember: Your objective is to aggregate a time period that takes away
common variations but still manages to alert you of relevant changes as soon as
possible. In the case above, for instance, to remove the weekend seasonality the
‘Week’ period was selected, when that happened the KPI now looks more stable
and alerts can now be setup:
2) Determine the conditions under which you want to be alerted, the options
available are:
a) Less/Greater than X
b) Increases/Decreases by more than X
c) %Increases/Decreases by more than X.
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Note: Select a condition that (based on historical data) you believe will send you
an alert only when something meaningful might actually have happened.
You want to avoid setting your conditions so strict that they send you an alert
every day even when nothing meaningful happens, but at the same time you
don’t want to set it so loose that it misses important events.
� Set up your alerts in Google Analytics
1) Log into your Google Analytics account
Note: Make sure you’re on the right Account and Property:
2) On the bottom left corner click ‘Admin’ > Custom Alerts
3) Make sure you are selecting the right view. → Click ‘New Alert’
4) Open your ClickMinded SOP Library | Google Analytics Alerts Planning
spreadsheet and start setting up your alert:
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● Alert name: This is the name of your alert, make it descriptive because this is
what you’ll receive in your email letting you know it set off.
● Apply to: This is the reporting views to which you want to apply this alert. In the
previous step you already confirmed the view that you want to set this alarm on,
so in all likelihood, you won’t need to do anything here.
● Period: The period you’ve already selected, this should be on your spreadsheet.
● Send me an email when this alert triggers. Also include X: Usually you will
want to tick this box if there’s anyone else that should receive the alert on their
email as well, make sure you tick their box too on the dropdown.
● Alert Conditions:
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○ This applies to: The dimension to which the alert applies (I.e. “All Traffic”,
“Country”, “Source”)
○ Alert me when: The metric to which the alert applies (I.e. “Sessions”,
“AOV”, “Conversion Rate”)
5) Click ‘Save Alert’
6) Mark as ‘Implemented’ as you go along and implement each of your alerts.
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