How to Set Up Goals for Tracking Outbound Links in Google Analytics
Google Analytics allows you to track nearly everything that happens on your website, including when people click on links to external sites. You can set up goals to track the links to an external page or domain to see if the links you put in your site are being clicked. For example, if you use a third-party eCommerce solution, you can see when people are clicking through to the shopping cart associated with your site. Note that you must have the Google Analytics tracking codes installed on your site for this to work.
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Instructions
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Browse to analytics.google.com and click "Access Analytics." Enter your Google username and password.
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Click on the gear button in the upper right corner of the screen. Click to select the account for which you wish to set up the goal. You must be an administrator to set goals.
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Click to select the site for which you wish to set a goal. Click on the "Goal" tab to see a list of four goal sets. You can have up to five goals within each goal set, for a total of 20 possible goals for a site.
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Click on the "+ Goal" link under one of the goal sets. Type a name for the goal in the "Goal Name" box.
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Click "URL Destination" for the "Goal Type." Type the URL for the external site for which you wish to track outbound links. Select "Head Match" from the Match Type box to match only the beginning of the URL, or select "Exact Match" to match the URL exactly.
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Click "Save" to save the goal. You can now add the goal at a metric; it will be listed under the goal name with the goal number in parenthesis.
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Tips & Warnings
Set a goal for every external link you want to track.
