Types of Conversion Goals in VWO Testing

The outcome that you expect from the website you are optimizing is typically known as a conversion goal. Goals are triggered when the visitors perform the action defined by you on the webpage. 

In VWO, every action your visitor performs on the webpage can be tied to a goal to track their behaviour during the test. The different conversion goals supported by VWO cover every possible action a visitor may perform on your website. Every unique time visitors take such an action on your website, it counts as a goal conversion.

For a goal to be tracked, visitors must first become part of a campaign. For example, the campaign URL is the home page URL, and the test page is the “Thank You” page. If the visitor lands on the product page and then navigates to the Thank You page, the goal is not triggered as the visitor has not become a part of the campaign yet. To become part of the campaign, the visitor must first land on the home page.

Ensure that the VWO SmartCode is added on every page where your goals are running. To learn how to add SmartCode on your website, refer to Configuring SmartCode for your Website.

Here’s a list of different conversion goals in VWO:

Track Page Visits On

If your goal is to record the amount of traffic that the particular page receives, say the website's products page, the Track Page Visits Goal in VWO will help you achieve this. It enables you to track page visits on a specific URL or URL pattern. Whenever a visitor visits this URL, it is counted as a conversion. 

In a typical business scenario, the page visits goal could be:

1. Tracking the number of unique visitors
2. Tracking visits on the content like videos or GIFs that resided in an iFrame on your webpage
   
   NOTE: To accomplish this, you must specify the goal URL as the iFrame URL.

For example, if your goal is to detect how many visitors land on your website's products page, you can choose this goal. Once you’ve configured this goal for a URL, VWO will start tracking the visits of the visitors who qualify for the campaign. 

To set up the Track Page Visits goal in VWO, perform these:

Procedure

1. Go to Testing > A/B, or you can select any other testing type per your requirements.
2. In the dashboard, click Create.
3. On the campaign control panel on the left, access Configuration > Goals, click the edit icon present next to the New Goal and specify the name of your goal.
4. From the Goal Type dropdown, select Tracks page visits on.
5. In the Included URLs field, specify the operation from the dropdown, and in the field next to it, enter the URL of the webpage where you want to track the conversions. If you wish to exclude a webpage from the goal conversion tracking, use the Exclude URL option to specify the operation and the URL of that page.

Track Form Submits To

If your goal is to track the conversions whenever a visitor successfully submitted a form on your webpage, the Track Form Submits Goal in VWO would help you achieve this.

Whenever a form is successfully submitted, it is counted as a conversion. This goal is particularly for HTML form submissions. If you wish to track submissions for dynamic/AJAX forms, use custom conversion goals.
You can also add the Track Form Submits goal through the Visual Editor. To learn more, refer to How to add goals in VWO using Visual Editor.

For example, if your objective is to track the successful submission of the event registration form on your website for the upcoming event, you can choose this goal. Once you’ve configured this goal for a URL, VWO will start tracking the conversions of the visitors who qualify for the campaign. 

To set up the Track Form Submits goal in VWO, perform these:

Procedure

1. Go to Testing > A/B, or you can select any other testing type per your requirements.
2. In the dashboard, click Create.
3. On the campaign control panel on the left, access Configuration > Goals, click the edit icon present next to the New Goal and specify the name of your goal.
4. From the Goal Type dropdown, select Tracks form submits to.
5. From the field below, specify the operation from the dropdown, and in the field next to it, enter the value of the action attribute of the <form> tag. To check the action URL of the form, right-click on the webpage where the form resides and select Inspect Element. Now, go to the Elements tab and search for <form> to find the action attribute along with the URL. This action URL should be used as the goal URL.

Track Clicks on Link

If you wish to track the number of visitors that clicked on a hyperlink present on your webpage, the Track Clicks on Link Goal in VWO will help you achieve this. 

It enables you to track the clicks on a specific link or a pattern of links. Whenever a visitor clicks the link present on your test page, it is counted as a conversion. 

For example, say a link to contact the support team is present on your website, and you wish to know the number of visitors who clicked on this link; you can choose this goal. Once you’ve configured this goal, VWO will start tracking the clicks on the hyperlinks of the visitors who qualify for the goal.  

If there are multiple hyperlinks on the same page that point to the same URL, clicking on either of those links will count towards the same goal.

To set up the Track Clicks on Link goal in VWO, perform these:

Procedure

1. Go to Testing > A/B, or you can select any other testing type per your requirements.
2. In the dashboard, click Create.
3. On the campaign control panel on the left, access Configuration > Goals, click the edit icon present next to the New Goal and specify the name of your goal.
4. From the Goal Type dropdown, select Tracks clicks on link.
5. From the field below, specify the operation from the dropdown, and in the field next to it, enter the URL that you want to track clicks on.

Track Clicks on Element(s)

If your goal is to track the clicks on the element(s) present on your website, the Track Clicks on Element(s) goal in VWO will help you achieve this. 

It enables you to track the element clicks on existing elements, newly added elements to the variation, and others on a specific URL or URL pattern. 

For example, to track clicks on menus, navigation bars, videos, images, and other elements, you can choose this goal. Once you’ve configured this goal for elements on the page, VWO will start tracking the element clicks for the visitors who qualify for the goal. 

To set up the Track Clicks on Element(s) goal in VWO, perform these:

Procedure

1. Go to Testing > A/B, or you can select any other testing type per your requirements.
2. In the dashboard, click Create.
3. On the campaign control panel on the left, access Configuration > Goals, click the edit icon present next to the New Goal and specify the name of your goal.
4. From the Goal Type dropdown, select Tracks clicks on element(s).
5. In the Enter CSS selector path of the element that you want to track field, enter a valid CSS selector path of the element you want to track. To know how to find the CSS selector path, refer to How to Find the CSS Selector.

Track Revenue On

If you wish to track the revenue generated from each successful purchase or any other transaction on your website, the Track Revenue Goal in VWO will help you achieve this.

To track the revenue on your webpage, you need to add a small Javascript tag (in addition to the VWO SmartCode). Say, if you want to track revenue on the final thank-you page, you could use a JavaScript Variable that holds the value of total revenue generated from a sale and use that variable to pass the value to VWO. Typically, the revenue value is available on the ‘thank­you’ page, where the transaction is made. This ensures that VWO tracks only those transactions where revenue is generated.

For example, consider an eCommerce site where users make purchases. You can track the revenue generated after the users submit the billing detail form successfully. To determine the revenue earned, you can define a revenue tracking goal for each successful submission of the billing form. To learn about implementing a revenue tracking goal, refer to How to Implement the Track Revenue Goal.

To set up the Track Revenue goal in VWO, perform these:

Procedure

1. Go to Testing > A/B, or you can select any other testing type per your requirements.
2. In the dashboard, click Create.
3. On the campaign control panel on the left, access Configuration > Goals, click the edit icon present next to the New Goal and specify the name of your goal.
4. From the Goal Type dropdown, select Tracks revenue on.
5. In the Included URLs field, specify the operation from the dropdown, and in the field next to it, enter the URL of the webpage where you want to track the conversions. If you wish to exclude a webpage from the goal conversion tracking, use the Exclude URL option to specify the operation and the URL of that page.
6. Click Save Now. This generates the revenue tracking code snippet for the mentioned page(s). Copy the code snippet and add it to your ‘thank you’ or ‘payment confirmation’ page by pasting it directly into the source code or deploying it via a tag management solution like Google Tag Manager.

   For any new conversion goal that is added to the campaign, the code snippet will be displayed under the respective goal.

Track Custom Conversion On

If your objective of tracking is not met by any predefined goal present in VWO, you can create a custom goal that suits your requirements. The Tracks Custom Conversion goal in VWO enables you to define a custom goal. 

The custom conversion goals typically don't deal with button clicks, link clicks, etc. For example, if your goal is to track when someone hovers on an element, you can create a custom conversion goal to trigger the hover event. Basically, you get a customizable goal snippet that you can associate with any event, add any custom conditions to, or map with any activity that VWO doesn't track out of the box.

Once you are done configuring this goal, a code snipped gets generated. To track the conversions, you must add this code snippet to the webpage where you wish to run the test.

To set up the Track Custom Conversion goal in VWO, perform these:

Procedure

1. Go to Testing > A/B, or you can select any other testing type per your requirements.
2. In the dashboard, click Create.
3. On the campaign control panel on the left, access Configuration > Goals, click the edit icon present next to the New Goal and specify the name of your goal.
4. From the Goal Type dropdown, select Tracks custom conversion on.
5. In the Included URLs field, specify the operation from the dropdown, and in the field next to it, enter the URL of the webpage where you want to track the conversions. If you wish to exclude a webpage from the goal conversion tracking, use the Exclude URL option to specify the operation and the URL of that page.
6. Click Save Now. This generates the custom conversion goal code. You can copy this code and paste it directly into the source code of your target page or deploy it via a tag management solution like Google Tag Manager.

   For any new conversion goal that is added to the campaign, the code snippet will be displayed under the respective goal.

   INFO: To know more about implementing a Custom Conversion goal, click here. You can also learn about how this goal helps you track Wistia Video Plays and the clicks on YouTube videos.

Tracks Engagement

If your objective is to track and record how the different visitors engage with your website, the Tracks Engagement testing goal in VWO will help you achieve this. 

VWO records a conversion whenever a visitor engages with your website. The visitors’ engagement on your website could be:

• Anchor element (<a></a>)
• Any element which is a descendant of an Anchor element, such as click img in <a><img /></a>
• A Button element (<button></button>)
• Any element which is a descendant of a Button element, such as click span in <button><span></span></button>
• Input element with the type button (<input type="button" />)
• Input element with the type submit (<input type="submit" />)
• Input element with the type image (<input type="image" />)

To set up the Track Engagement goal in VWO, perform these:

Procedure

1. Go to Testing > A/B, or you can select any other testing type per your requirements.
2. In the dashboard, click Create.
3. On the campaign control panel on the left, access Configuration > Goals, click the edit icon present next to the New Goal and specify the name of your goal.
4. From the Goals Type dropdown, select the option Tracks engagement.

Summary of Goal Types

The following table presents a summary of the usage of the different types of conversion goals in VWO: