rethinking goals

[chrissky]

If Google is adding more goals to GA, I think the current bad
semantics for goals in the API is only going to get worse. Don't you
think it would be better to have a "goal" dimension, and metrics such
as Starts, Completions, etc.?

Chris

[chrissky]

Doing this would also address a deficiency of the current API - there
is no way to get the name of a goal. I was thinking of requesting that
metrics be added for this, eg: ga:goal1Name. But I think a goal
dimension would be much better.

Chris

[Nick]

Hey Chris,

We're looking closely at how to expose more goal configuration data.

For goal performance data, the API exposes the same data our web UI
uses. Could you elaborate a bit on your proposal and what you would
gain?

-Nick

[chrissky]

Sure. Let's say I wanted a table with Site Goals on rows and Total
Completions and Conversion Rate on columns. With what I've suggested
above this could be done using an api query with
dimensions=ga:goal and metrics=ga:goalCompletions,ga:visits (then
doing the calculation). What we gain is a simpler way of expressing
this, and getting the results back in a form easier to manage.

Currently we have to ask for metrics
ga:goa1Completions,ga:goal2Completions,...,ga:goalNCompletions. And
then we have to reshape the result feed and manually add in the goal
names.

[Nick]

Hi Chris,

We actually looked at this solution when implementing goals, but,
there was no way to specify goals through advanced segments without an
extra layer of filtering. In the end, we thought it would be easiest
to just have a separate dimension for each goal which you can
reference directly. Same for custom variables.

-Nick


On Nov 13, 9:44 pm, chrissky wrote:
> Sure. Let's say I wanted a table with SiteGoalson rows and Total