Burning question about using goal values for both micro and macro goals...

Hey friends!

Burning question here regarding GA goal values (this has literally bugged me for years):

How should one properly ascribe values to GA goals in the very common case where multiple micro goals all contribute to a macro goal?

E.g. let's say our micro goals are:

• content download
• video view
• webinar signup

And our macro goal is:

• apply now button clicked

In this case it was all about getting the user to the "apply now" button goal, but three other goals happened first. Should one only value the big one, or also value the smaller ones, too? It seems that the recommended way is to value as many goals as possible, so we can easily see which micro goals are worth it.

However....

If we value them all, don't we end up "double dipping" on the overall goal values?

E.g.let's say the value of the apply now goal is $500, and all these actions happen with their associated values ...

1. content download - $25
2. video view - $25
3. webinar signup - $50
4. apply now button clicked - $500

Now we have an aggregate GA goal value for a user of $600—except they only produced produce $500 worth of value. Hope you take my meaning here.

And of course, we can't really subtract the value of the micro goals from apply now (e.g., make it $400), because we don't know if people will actually do them or not (it's not linear...).

Thanks! I'm guessing there is a way to handle this, but I don't know what it is.

 

I would like to know more about this. thanks