Copying Goals in Google Analytics (A Firefox Extension)
Ever need 30 profiles, each with the same 4 goals? Me too. Unfortunately, Google Analytics doesn’t include an easy way to manage goals.
So, here’s the Firefox extension I created to speed up the process of copying goals. We’ll just call it “GoalCopy”.
What it does
The Goal Copy extension records all of the values in a Google Analytics Goal Settings form. You can then navigate to another profile where you want to put that copied goal and paste all of those values into the new form. That way, you can get your goals from one profile to another without all the tedium.
When you install it, it will create a new toolbar with 4 sets of copy/paste buttons. Each set will copy and paste a different goal of your choice. The toolbar can be toggled on/off with View -> Toolbars -> GA GoalCopy
How to use it
1. After installation, navigate your Firefox browser to an existing Google Analytics Goal Settings form.
2. Click one of the four Copy Goal buttons on the Goal Copy toolbar.
3. The name of the Paste Goal button will change to show the name of the goal you copied. If the name of your
goal was “Subscribe to Newsletter” then the Paste Goal button will display “Paste: Subscribe to Newsletter”
4. Go to another profile and navigate to a Goal Settings form page where you’d like to use your newly copied goal.
5. Click the Paste button to populate the new goal form with the values from copied goal.
6. Remember to scroll down and click “Save Changes” on the form.
That’s it. You now have your new profile ready to collect goal conversion data.
Notes
Buttons are grayed-out when not on a Goal Settings page.
There are 4 Slots to save goals in. Each set of Copy/Paste buttons uses its own slot.
Clicking Copy Goal again overwrites the previously saved goal for that slot.
Goals are saved persistently. Closing your browser does not erase your saved goals.
When clicking from a tab that is still Loading to a Goal Settings tab, the buttons will not re-enable properly from their grayed-out state – just click on a tab that is fully loaded (or blank) and then back to the Goal Settings tab to enable the buttons.
Requires Firefox 2.0.*
Thanks
Thanks to everyone who provided testing and feedback, including Jason Green here at LunaMetrics, Justin Cutroni at EpikOne, Shawn Purtell at ROI Revolution, and Mike Plummer at POP (sorry for not getting it out earlier that day, Mike).
Installation
Then click Install Now.
Depending on your setup, Firefox may want to download the file instead of installing it directly. Just select “Open With. . .” and choose Firefox from the list of applications.
Alternate Version
If you’re having problems with the toolbar being greyed-out on the ‘Edit Goals’ form page, try this version that never disables the toolbar buttons.
These changes have been incorporated into the latest version and are part of the goalcopy.xpi file.
-John Henson
January 21st, 2008 at 1:27 pm
John, thank you very much for creating this.
Whenever I’m showing new people how to work with Google Analytics I try to encourage them to feel free to explore new ideas and test out new hunches by creating extra profiles. But the tedious work of duplicating goals and generally sorting out basic configuration is enough to make most novices reluctant to explore in that way.
I think that what seems to be a purely functional utility may have a knock on effect of encouraging people to do even more in the way of actual analysis.
Great stuff. Thank you again.
Tim
January 21st, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Sweet! A very valuable service for everyone!
Now if only I could ask for a small enhancement for future versions: If it notices that you have no goals set up in Google Analytics then it sends the Site Owner a small tiny electric shock, or atleast a guilty pang!
I am constantly surprised by how few people have goals set up in their Analytics tool, and there is nothing else that can bring focus and value to your analytics exercise like setting proper goals.
-Avinash.
January 22nd, 2008 at 2:14 am
Thanks for that John, it is a really amazing (and very actionable) tool!
January 22nd, 2008 at 8:44 am
Great job John! It’s simple to use and works every time. A fantastic time-saver.
Justin
January 23rd, 2008 at 9:53 am
Everyone: Thanks for the feedback. It really makes the difference.
Avinash: Due to legal ramifications I will not be able to implement the kaushikShockTreatment(); function. However, whenever the extension finds a profile without goals, it will now call the sendEmailToAvinash(); function !!
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:47 am
Excellent work John, and THANK YOU!
This will surely make my life easier as I increase my usage of GA.
It would be nice to take this project further. I wonder what the Open Source community would think of making a Google Analytics toolbar? The toolbar could have a dual role:
1. Provide useful tools for managing GA profiles
- clone profile
- “record” Goal Path
- etc
2. Provide absolute high-level snapshots right in the browser toolbar (# Visits today, # Goals Completed, Bounce Rate, etc etc)
I probably just gave away someone’s trade secrets. But… if there is support for this, I’m game to get involved in making it happen. Email me!
Aaron
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:49 am
GAT - Google Analytics Toolbar
January 25th, 2008 at 10:41 am
The buttons are greyed out on the goals page. Please fix.
Looking forward to using this useful utility.
Cheers!
Tom
January 25th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Tom,
If this happens to you, try switching to a fully loaded tab, and switching back to the tab with the goal form loaded.
Sorry about the inconvenience this creates.
John
January 31st, 2008 at 9:40 am
Hi,
I have a same problem. Buttons are greyed out. I’ve tried switching tabs and it doesnt work. Any other fix?
Thanks.
Duong
January 31st, 2008 at 10:19 am
Duong,
You must be on a Goal Settings page to use the buttons. This is the page that has the form fields into which you enter the URLs for your goal and funnel steps.
The First and Third images in the post above show this page.
January 31st, 2008 at 1:46 pm
John,
I am in the Goal Setting page when using your tool, it doesnt work. I can send you the screen shots. I have other firefox plugins, would this conflict?
Thanks
January 31st, 2008 at 2:17 pm
I don’t disbelieve you, Duong.
Are you using Firefox version 2 or higher? I’m using some functions that are not available in Firefox 1.5.
You can email me a screenshot at
lunametrics.com, henson@
February 3rd, 2008 at 10:05 am
thanks for the very useful tool, but it doesn’t work with me buttons are grayed,
I’m using Firefox 2.0.0.11 and using some tool bars (”web developer tool bar”, “Keyword Generator”)
could those tool bars makes any conflicts.
finally I’ve tried all the tricks mentioned above but didn’t worked too
thanks again.
February 3rd, 2008 at 10:34 am
I have added a version of GoalCopy that never disables the toolbar for anyone having problems.
It is at http://www.lunametrics.com/goalcopy/goalcopy-nogrey.xpi
February 5th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Awesome! It works Great! Thanks for the fix.
February 5th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
[...] Copying Goals in Google Analytics (A Firefox Extension) -Masz stronę internetową z zainstalowanym kodem Google Analytics, dla której stworzyłeś wiele profili i musisz mozolnie kopiować ustawienia celu dla każdego profilu? Skorzystaj wówczas z wtyczki do Firefox opisanej w powyższym poście. Dużo szybciej i sprawniej od manualnego kopiowania. [...]
February 9th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Thanks for the great extension! A real time saver!!
February 12th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
John,
No idea if this is of any use to you… of anyone else for that matter.
Would it be possible to create a 2nd part to this toolbar - to create the goal in the first place
So I can walk through the site’s sales process
& click a button on each page as I go through
the toolbar would remember all the URLs, parse out any ireelevant variables AND figure out that the last URL was the thankyou page & make it the target for the goal.
It would then allow me to paste all those URLs into the Goals page with 1 click & prompt me for a goal value.
whatdoya think? any use at all? too complicated? only 3 people in the world that would use it?
cheers,
mike
February 14th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Mike,
That’s a really interesting idea. It’s certainly possible to capture the URL. Removing the irrelevant parameters would be difficult since that would be so open ended, but with some arbitrary decision making you might get something that would be what you wanted most of the time.
It wouldn’t work for funnels with regular expressions, or non-URL based steps ofcourse.
Anyway, I don’t think it is something I’d want to tackle myself, but it’s definitely an interesting problem.
February 15th, 2008 at 12:50 am
Thanks so much for this John. Your tool has already saved me about 10 hours of my life and a year worth of carpal tunnel.
I guess I can stop bugging Google for the goal manager interface now
Mike
February 15th, 2008 at 8:24 am
Thanks Mike.
I told people here that it was my aversion to carpal tunnel surgery that was my inspiration.
February 20th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Hello,
thanks a lot for the tool ! It works great (after installing the alternate version)
I ow you a lot of time
+
April 4th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Excellent FF extension!
Do you plan on upgrading it for FF 3.0 (GranParadiso)?
April 4th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Awesome tool, I just wish I had found this a few months ago
I did an install and already worth its weight in gold.
Thanks,
BJ
April 4th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Christophe,
It should only require updating the maxversion from 2.0.0.* to 3.0.*
I haven’t seen any changes so far that affect it.
I probably won’t make that change until everything is final with FF3
John
April 5th, 2008 at 8:31 am
[...] Une extension Firefox pour copier coller les objectifs Cette extension vous permet de garder en mémoire dans Firefox le paramétrage de 4 objectifs et de les recopier dans d’autres profils ou d’autres comptes. Ultra pratique pour les utilisateurs qui gèrent un grand nombre d’objectifs avec des étapes intermédiaires. [...]
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Nice tool, thanks John.
Feature request:
It would be great if it could also copy IP filters!
May 27th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Nice Work! Thanks very much. Super useful. I love finding time savers.
@Chris Goward: Filters are automatically saved for you in GA. When you click “Add Filter to Profile,” check the radio button that says “Apply Existing Filter” and you will be given a list of previously used filters. Of course, those filters have to exist for that analytics account. Hope that helps.
May 28th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Yea! It worked! Thanks! I did have to install the “never greyed out version”.
June 19th, 2008 at 4:56 am
What about Firefox 3.x?
June 19th, 2008 at 7:28 am
I have made a couple changes that should take care of it operating in FF3. I haven’t had time to test it completely. I’ll try to get to that this week, though, and see if I can post an updated .xpi file.
June 21st, 2008 at 6:02 am
[...] what I’m talking about. So for those who are going “what the heck is he talking about?”, the Goal Copy Firefox extension can be used to copy goals between profiles in Google Analytics. Take a look at my previous posts if [...]
July 7th, 2008 at 9:15 am
[...] It takes the pain out of copying goals to lots of profiles. You can read more about it in this blog post form [...]
July 8th, 2008 at 1:47 am
[...] Se det oprindelige indlæg om Goal Copy fra LunaMetrics These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
July 15th, 2008 at 8:52 am
Hi,
I’m having problems downloading this extension. When I click on the ‘Open this link in Firefox’ above I get a page of….
PK??????O4|E????{?????build.sh?WmsG????????];?&?d???(d?.u$h? ?????,???
Any ideas what the problem is?
thanks
July 15th, 2008 at 9:08 am
It may have to do with how your Firefox browser is configured to handle .xpi files.
Try right clicking on the link and selecting ’save link as’. Save the file to your computer, then drag the file onto the display area of your Firefox browser. This should prompt you to install the extension.
July 18th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Hey John,
With the latest version, I’m able to copy goals in firefox 3 but not paste them. Another colleague is able to paste only the top portion of the goal, but not the funnel steps. Perhaps this is related to the inconsistent html problem you mentioned earlier?
-Mike
July 18th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Try getting the updated ‘international’ version from http://blog.iih.dk/goal-copy-extension-international/
Anders Moller updated it for the HTML that he was pulling in Denmark.
If that does not work, go to the Goal Form page, and email me the HTML source that you have.
July 18th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Actually, I went ahead and uploaded Anders’ version to the lunametrics site. So you can get it from the link in this post as well.
Let me know if you still have problems.
August 1st, 2008 at 7:22 am
Great add-on !
Thanks a million : Jesus and I we love you
September 5th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Awesome concept, and I would love to use it, but it doesn’t seem to be “pasting” in FF3. Has anyone else had issues with it “pasting” the goals into the blank fields?
September 5th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Woops, looks like I was just on the wrong page.
Might want to update this page with a new link because this page comes up higher in the search results
September 5th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Jonathan,
Can you go to your goal page in GA, in the browser you are trying to use, and Copy and Paste the Source HTML into an email for me?
You can email it to my last name at lunametrics.com
Thanks
September 24th, 2008 at 8:05 am
This is sweet.
Thank you so much.