Goal tracking helps you see how effective your marketing is at converting views into sales or engagement. You can create and share unique tracking links for different marketing channels and check to see which link results in the most completed goals.

Tracking links can be configured with or without goal tracking. There are three types of goals available: opt-ins, page visits, and purchases.

You can compare data from different analytics dashboards in your account that track activity and results in various ways. For example, if you set up a tracking link with a purchase goal, you can check how many purchases happened through that link. You can also look at the data for the product itself to see the complete picture.

Understanding tracking link goals

Sample scenario: A tracking link is set to track clicks and goals, with the goal identified as a product purchase (next image).

Example of tracking link setup with goal

In the tracking link analytics, you can see the number of clicks, number of goals met, and total revenue from those goals (next image). 

Example of tracking link analytics details

In the sales analytics, you can see the number of visitors to a checkout, number of sales and rebills, and total revenue (next image).

Example of product sales analytics

The analytics for a tracking link might say that 7 sales goals were achieved, but if you look at the product, you see that you actually made 9 sales. Why don't the numbers match?

User behavior can cause mismatched data

  • Arriving from multiple access points: If buyers can reach the product checkout without using the tracking link, any purchase they make won’t be counted towards the goal for that tracking link.
  • Switching devices or clearing cookies: If a buyer clicks the tracking link but doesn’t purchase right away, then takes an action that interrupts the tracking. Examples:
    • Returning to the checkout page using a different device to complete the purchase.
    • Clearing their browser cookies before completing the purchase.

Cookies can limit tracking

Kartra uses cookies to track behavior and identify leads who interact with your content. If cookie tracking is interrupted, limited, or blocked, your analytics might be missing some pieces.

Essential Cookies Only:

  • If a visitor is unknown and accepts only essential cookies, Kartra won't recognize them as unique visitors. It means Kartra won't remember if they've been on the page before or be able to record their actions in their lead log.

A "known" visitor is someone who fills out a form or clicks a link that allows Kartra to link them to a lead in your account. If the lead's GDPR status shows they have agreed to your data privacy terms, functions that rely on their details will work even if they do not accept all cookies on a specific page. These functions include countdown timers based on when they arrived on your site, page redirects based on their tags, and more.

Cleared Cookies:

  • When a visitor clears their cookie history after taking an action (like clicking a tracking link), Kartra will forget the original action. If they make a purchase later, there will be no connection between the two actions. The link click will show in link analytics, and the purchase in sales analytics, but no goal will be recorded for the link.

Multiple Devices:

  • If visitors use multiple devices, Kartra's tracking gets split across multiple cookie records. For example, if a tracking link is clicked on a phone, a cookie with link click information is created. If the visitor then goes to the sales page on their laptop without clicking the link again, a new cookie is created with only the page visit information. Because these cookies are separate, Kartra can't connect the actions to complete a goal for the tracking link.

Learn more about cookies