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SOP 082: How to Set up Google Analytics alerts to monitor your main KPIs

Goal: 
To receive email notifications when 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.
The specific steps on this SOP apply only to Universal Google Analytics (not Google Analytics 4). If you followed other ClickMinded SOPs to create your Google Analytics account or if you set up Google Analytics before October 2020 you most likely have a Universal Analytics property.
Where this is done: 
In Google Analytics.

When is this 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.

SOP Update: Google Analytics 4

💡 Note: On July 1, 2023, standard Universal Analytics properties will no longer process data. You'll be able to see your Universal Analytics reports for a period of time after July 1, 2023. However, new data will only flow into Google Analytics 4 properties.

We’ve updated this SOP to reflect the latest change in Google Analytics, before starting this SOP select one of the following:

  • If you’re using a Google Analytics 4 property then follow the SOP highlighted in “Set up your alerts in Google Analytics 4”.

If you’re still using Universal analytics then follow the steps below to get started:

1. On the top left corner click on the Account Dropdown and select a view within your Universal Analytics property (Not the GA4 property):

💡 Note: You can identify your Universal Analytics property by noticing the ‘UA-’ prefix in the Property ID below its name:

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 (web version)

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 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.

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:
    1. Check how that KPI changed daily overtime, for the last 60 days.
    2. If you see that your KPI is usually stable like so, set it to daily:

    1. 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:
    1. Less/Greater than X
    2. Increases/Decreases by more than X
    3. %Increases/Decreases by more than X.

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 (Universal 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’

Note: Make sure you select the Google Analytics - Universal Analytics property (Property ID starts with UA-)


4. Open your ClickMinded SOP Library | Google Analytics Alerts Planning spreadsheet and start setting up your alert:

    • 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:
      • 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.

Set up your alerts in Google Analytics 4

  1. Log into your Google Analytics 4 account.
  2. On the home page, scroll to the bottom and click “View all insights”.

3. Click “Create”.

4. Scroll to the bottom. In the “Start from scratch” section, click “Create new”. You will be creating new insights which will let you automatically monitor performance of your site.

5. Set the conditions in which you want to monitor your site.
    1. Frequency — How often do you want to monitor your site metric? Choose between daily, weekly or monthly.
    2. Metrics — Choose the metric in which you want to monitor. Choose the site metrics that’s most important to your site such as conversions, revenue, or page views.
    3. Conditions — Choose the condition where if fulfilled you’ll be notified right away. Example: When page views is 30% less than last week.

6. Set the name of this insights. This is the name you’ll see in the notifications, so use a descriptive name.

7. Lastly, enter the email you will use to receive the email notification.

8. Click “Create” from the top corner.

9. That’s it! You’ve now created an alert to monitor your key website metrics.