In this article, I am going to talk about Google Analytics custom alerts with examples.
Introduction to custom alerts in Google Analytics
Custom alerts in Google Analytics notify you via email when there are any changes in your analytics data based on the preconfigured thresholds.
Using the custom alert feature, you can follow a proactive approach to monitor your data and take meaningful decisions.
It is not possible to keep an eye on every single metric and dimension in Google Analytics 24/7, and this is where custom alerts play an important role in keeping you updated with all changes in your dataset.
Now let’s see how we can create, manage, and delete the custom alerts in Google Analytics.
Get the E-Book (50 Pages)
Get the FREE E-Book (50+ Pages)
Create and manage custom alerts
To create custom alerts in Google Analytics follow the below steps.
Step-1: Login to your Google Analytics account and click on ‘Admin’.
Step-2: Select the view and click on ‘Custom alerts’ under ‘Personal tools & assets’.
Step-3: This will open a custom alert configuration panel, click on ‘+ New Alert’.
Step-4: You will get a screen like below. Give your alert a descriptive name. As an example, I am going to create an alert for if the traffic for my websites decreases by more than 10% over the month.
Step-5: Now you get an option to select the additional views to set a custom alert for:
The current view is already selected.
Click on the drop-down ‘other views’.
Select the additional views if needed.
Note: You can select views from the different properties as well. I am not going to select the additional views for now, and the above image is just for reference.
Step-6: Now click on the drop-down beside ‘Period’ to select the reporting period of the custom alert. Options available are:
Day: If selected, the custom alert will trigger with the comparison period of a single day (the previous day, same day previous week,, or same day previous year) based on the threshold configuration set.
Week: If selected, the custom alert will trigger with the comparison period of a previous week based on the threshold configuration set.
Month: If selected, the custom alert will trigger with the comparison period of one month (previous month or same month previous year) based on the threshold configuration set.
As per our example, I am going to select ‘Month’.
Step-7: Now select the checkbox ‘Send me an email when this alert triggers.’ and click on the drop-down beside ‘Also include’.
Step-8: A small pop-up will open, as below. You can search for an existing email address (it can include all email addresses that have access to current and selected analytics views) or add your email address by clicking on ‘Add new email address’.
Step-9: Once you click on ‘Add new email address’ it will open a pop-up like below where you need to fill out the email address and label (optional field e.g. internal organization, CXO’s reporting, external agency) and then click on ‘OK’.
Note: You will receive email alerts from ‘[email protected]’ so make sure this email address is not marked as spam or junk.
Step-10: Once you have added the email address it will appear like below. Now click on the green drop-down under ‘Alert Condition’ to define when the alert will be triggered.
Step-11: Now select the dimension category.
Note: By default ‘All Traffic’ is the selected dimension.
Step-12: Once you select the category, the drop-down will expand and you can select any dimension of the corresponding category.
As per our example, I am going to continue with the default dimension selected ‘All Traffic’.
Step-13: The next step is to select the metrics for the corresponding dimension. The process is similar to the step that we did while selecting the dimension. Click on the blue drop-down under ‘Alert me when’ to define when the alert will be triggered.
Step-14: Now select the metric category.
Note: By default ‘Session’ is the selected metric.
Step-15: Once you select the category, the drop-down will expand where you can select any metric to the corresponding category.
As per our example, I am going to continue with the default dimension selected ‘Session’.
Step-16: Now click on the drop-down ‘Condition’ and then select any condition from the available options.
As per our example, we are setting an alert for if the traffic for websites decreases by more than 10% over the month. So, I will select the option ‘% decreases by more than’.
Step-17: Now specify the threshold value in the input box available next to ‘Value’.
Step-18: Select the comparison period from the dropdown available under ‘Compared to’.
Here, I wanted to be alerted if the traffic decreases by more than 10%, so I will select the option ‘Previous month’.
Step-19: Your overall alert configuration will look like below. Now click on ‘Save’.
Congratulations! You have successfully created a custom alert in Google Analytics.
You can check the custom alert, as below.
That’s it you are done. If the condition matches the alert configuration, it will send an email to you immediately. The custom alert email looks similar to the below image.
Delete custom alerts
If you want to delete a custom alert, you can follow the below steps:
Step-1: Log in to your Google Analytics account and click on ‘Admin’.
Step-2: Select the view and click on ‘Custom alerts’ under ‘Personal tools & assets’.
Step-3: It will open a custom alert configuration panel where you can see the list of custom alerts. Now click on the ‘Remove’ link in front of the alert that you want to delete.
Step-4: A pop-up window will open like below to ask for confirmation for the removal of the alert. Click on ‘OK’.
Once you click on ‘OK’ your custom alert will be permanently removed.
Google Analytics alerts when the website is down
It is very unfortunate if your website is down and Google Analytics is not receiving any data.
There could be multiple reasons for this, like server down (very rare) or somehow your development team has removed the tracking code from the website. Imagine the scenario where this happens and you don’t find out about it for days or weeks. You will lose complete data for the entire period your website was down.
It is recommended to set up a custom alert for such scenarios so that you can take appropriate action immediately.
You can set the below custom alert:
Alert Name: No Traffic to Website
Apply to: All the Views in Production (Live website views)
Period: Day
Alert Dimension: All Traffic
Alert Metric: Sessions
Condition: Is less than
Value: 1
Top 20 custom alerts
Now I am going to talk about the top 20 custom alerts that you should consider setting for your Google Analytics view.
In all of the examples below, the comparison period depends on how often you would like to see the alert. It could be a day, a week, or a month period.
1. Drop in sessions (visits)
You can set this alert to see the drop in sessions as compared to the previous period.
Alert Name: Drop in Sessions (Visits)
Apply to: All the Views in Production (Live website views)
Period: Week
Alert Dimension: All Traffic
Alert Metric: Sessions
Condition: % decreases by more than
Value: 10 (Can be customizable based on requirement)
Compared to: Previous Week
2. Drop in users (visitors)
You can set this alert to see the drop in users as compared to the previous period. Here the comparison period depends on how often you would like to see the alert, it could be a week or month period.
Alert Name: Drop in Users (Visitors)
Apply to: All the Views in Production (Live website views)
Period: Week
Alert Dimension: All Traffic
Alert Metric: Users
Condition: % decreases by more than
Value: 10 (Can be customizable based on requirement)
Compared to: Previous Week
3. Increase in bounce rate
You can set this alert to know if there is a significant increase in bounce rate on the website.
Alert Name: Increase in bounce rate
Apply to: All the Views in Production (Live website views)
Period: Day
Alert Dimension: All Traffic
Alert Metric: Bounce rate
Condition: % increases by more than
Value: 90 (Can be customizable based on requirement)
Compared to: Previous day
4. Increase in page load time
You can set this alert to know if there is a significant increase in page load time for the website. Increased page load time has a direct impact on user experience and increases bounce rate.
Alert Name: Increase in page load time
Apply to: All the Views in Production (Live website views)
Period: Day
Alert Dimension: All Traffic
Alert Metric: Avg. page load time (sec)
Condition: % increases by more than
Value: 70 (Can be customizable based on requirement)
Compared to: Previous day
5. Decrease in average session duration
You can set this alert to know if there is a significant decrease in session duration time for the website. Decreased session duration means users are not getting the right information or content that they are looking for, or there may be some technical errors on the website causing users to leave early
Alert Name: Decrease in Avg. Session duration
Apply to: All the Views in Production (Live website views)
Period: Day
Alert Dimension: All Traffic
Alert Metric: Avg. Session duration
Condition: % decreases by more than
Value: 70 (Can be customizable based of requirement)
Compared to: Previous day
6. Decrease in goal conversion
Goal conversion helps you understand how users are converting and performing against the website objective. You can set this alert to know if there is a significant decrease in goal conversions.
Alert Name: Decrease in Goal conversion
Apply to: All the Views in Production (Live website views)
Period: Day
Alert Dimension: All Traffic
Alert Metric: Goal conversion rate
Condition: % decreases by more than
Value: 80 (Can be customizable based on requirement)
Compared to: Previous day
7. Decrease in session with search
Many users search for particular information on your website. You can set this alert to know if there is a significant decrease in sessions with search. This can provide more information about site search functionality issues.
Alert Name: Decrease in session with search
Apply to: All the Views in Production (Live website views)
Period: Day
Alert Dimension: All Traffic
Alert Metric: Session with search
Condition: % decreases by more than
Value: 50 (Can be customizable based on requirement)
Compared to: Previous day
8. Decrease in total events
You can set this alert to know if there is a significant decrease in total events.
Alert Name: Decrease in total events
Apply to: All the Views in Production (Live website views)
Period: Day
Alert Dimension: All Traffic
Alert Metric: Total events
Condition: % decreases by more than
Value: 80 (Can be customizable based on requirement)
Compared to: Previous day
9. Decrease in ecommerce revenue
Set this alert to know if there is a significant decrease in ecommerce revenue.
Alert Name: Decrease in ecommerce revenue
Apply to: All the Views in Production (Live website views)
Period: Day
Alert Dimension: All Traffic
Alert Metric: Revenue
Condition: % decreases by more than
Value: 30 (Can be customizable based on requirement)
Compared to: Previous day
10. Decrease in ecommerce transactions
You can set this alert to know if there is a significant decrease in ecommerce transactions.
Alert Name: Decrease in ecommerce transaction
Apply to: All the Views in Production (Live website views)
Period: Day
Alert Dimension: All Traffic
Alert Metric: Transactions
Condition: % decreases by more than
Value: 30 (Can be customizable based on requirement)
Compared to: Previous day
11. Decrease in ecommerce conversion rate
You can set this alert to know if there is a significant decrease in the ecommerce conversion rate.
Alert Name: Decrease in ecommerce conversion rate
Apply to: All the Views in Production (Live website views)
Period: Day
Alert Dimension: All Traffic
Alert Metric: Ecommerce Conversion Rate
Condition: % decreases by more than
Value: 30 (Can be customizable based on requirement)
Compared to: Previous day
12. Decrease in ad impressions
You can set this alert to know if there is a significant decrease in the ad impression metric from Google Ads.
Alert Name: Decrease in ad impressions
Apply to: All the Views in Production (Live website views)
Period: Day
Alert Dimension: All Traffic
Alert Metric: Impression
Condition: % decreases by more than
Value: 20 (Can be customizable based on requirement)
Compared to: Previous day
13. Decrease in ad clicks
You can set this alert to know if there is a significant decrease in ad clicks metric from Google Ads.
Alert Name: Decrease in ad clicks
Apply to: All the Views in Production (Live website views)
Period: Day
Alert Dimension: All Traffic
Alert Metric: Clicks
Condition: % decreases by more than
Value: 20 (Can be customizable based of requirement)
Compared to: Previous day
14. Significant increase in ads cost
Google Ads cost can shoot up directly depending upon the bidding strategy. A significant increase in cost may lead to going out of budget. You can set this alert to know if there is a significant increase in ad cost metric from Google Ads
Alert Name: Increase in ad cost
Apply to: All the Views in Production (Live website views)
Period: Day
Alert Dimension: All Traffic
Alert Metric: Cost
Condition: % increases by more than
Value: 20 (Can be customizable based of requirement)
Compared to: Previous day
15. Ad keyword not set
You can set this alert to know if there are any Google Ads running with keyword value ‘(not set)’. This happens often if the keywords are not set correctly in Google Ads configuration.
Alert Name: Ad keyword (not set)
Apply to: All the Views in Production (Live website views)
Period: Day
Alert Dimension: Keyword
Dimension Condition: Matches exactly
Dimension Value: (not set)
Alert Metric: Sessions
Condition: % increases by more than
Value: 5 (Can be customizable based on requirement)
Compared to: Previous day
16. Decrease in organic traffic
You can set this alert to know if there is a significant decrease in organic traffic.
Alert Name: Decrease in organic traffic
Apply to: All the Views in Production (Live website views)
Period: Day
Alert Dimension: Medium
Dimension Condition: Matches exactly
Dimension Value: organic
Alert Metric: Sessions
Condition: % decreases by more than
Value: 30 (Can be customizable based on requirement)
Compared to: Previous day
17. Decrease in direct traffic
You can set this alert to know if there is a significant decrease in direct traffic.
Alert Name: Decrease in direct traffic
Apply to: All the Views in Production (Live website views)
Period: Day
Alert Dimension: Medium
Dimension Condition: Matches exactly
Dimension Value: (direct)
Alert Metric: Sessions
Condition: % decreases by more than
Value: 30 (Can be customizable based on requirement)
Compared to: Previous day
18. Decrease in referral traffic
You can set this alert to know if there is a significant decrease in referral traffic.
Alert Name: Decrease in referral traffic
Apply to: All the Views in Production (Live website views)
Period: Day
Alert Dimension: Medium
Dimension Condition: Matches exactly
Dimension Value: referral
Alert Metric: Sessions
Condition: % decreases by more than
Value: 30 (Can be customizable based on requirement)
Compared to: Previous day
19.Decrease in social traffic
You can set this alert to know if there is a significant decrease in social traffic.
Alert Name: Decrease in social traffic
Apply to: All the Views in Production (Live website views)
Period: Day
Alert Dimension: Medium
Dimension Condition: contains
Dimension Value: social
Alert Metric: Sessions
Condition: % decreases by more than
Value: 30 (Can be customizable based of requirement)
Compared to: Previous day
20. Decrease in email traffic
You can set this alert to know if there is a significant decrease in email traffic.
Alert Name: Decrease in email traffic
Apply to: All the Views in Production (Live website views)
Period: Day
Alert Dimension: Medium
Dimension Condition: contains
Dimension Value: email
Alert Metric: Sessions
Condition: % decreases by more than
Value: 30 (Can be customizable based on requirement)
Frequently asked questions about Google Analytics custom alerts
What are custom alerts in Google Analytics?
Custom alerts in Google Analytics notify you via email when there are any changes in your analytics data based on the preconfigured thresholds. Using the custom alert feature you can follow a proactive approach to monitor your data and take meaningful decisions.
How to set custom alerts in Google Analytics?
Follow the below steps to set custom alerts: Step-1: Navigate to Google Analytics admin settings Step-2: Click on ‘Custom Alerts’ under View column Step-3: Click on ‘+New Alert’ Step-4: Give Alert a descriptive name Step-5: Select views for which you want to set alert under ‘Apply to’ Step-6: Select Period (Day, Week, or Month) Step-7: Mark the check box under ‘Send me an email when this alert triggers’ and add your email id. Step-8: Select the dimension to which the alert applies under ‘This applies to’ Step-9: Select the metric to which alert applies under ‘Alert me when’ Step-10: Select the condition under ‘Alert me when’ Step-11: Enter the threshold value for alert under ‘Alert me when’ Step-12: Save the alert.
How will I receive custom alerts in Google Analytics?
When the custom alert is triggered, you will receive an email from ‘[email protected]’ with the subject line ‘Google Analytics custom alerts’. Make sure this email address is not marked as spam or junk.
Register for the FREE TRAINING...
"How to use Digital Analytics to generate floods of new Sales and Customers without spending years figuring everything out on your own."
Here’s what we’re going to cover in this training…
#1 Why digital analytics is the key to online business success.
#2 The number 1 reason why most marketers are not able to scale their advertising and maximize sales.
#3 Why Google and Facebook ads don’t work for most businesses & how to make them work.
#4 Why you won’t get any competitive advantage in the marketplace just by knowing Google Analytics.
#5 The number 1 reason why conversion optimization is not working for your business.
#6 How to advertise on any marketing platform for FREE with an unlimited budget.
#7 How to learn and master digital analytics and conversion optimization in record time.
My best selling books on Digital Analytics and Conversion Optimization
Maths and Stats for Web Analytics and Conversion Optimization
This expert guide will teach you how to leverage the knowledge of maths and statistics in order to accurately interpret data and take actions, which can quickly improve the bottom-line of your online business.
Master the Essentials of Email Marketing Analytics
This book focuses solely on the ‘analytics’ that power your email marketing optimization program and will help you dramatically reduce your cost per acquisition and increase marketing ROI by tracking the performance of the various KPIs and metrics used for email marketing.
Attribution Modelling in Google Analytics and Beyond
Attribution modelling is the process of determining the most effective marketing channels for investment. This book has been written to help you implement attribution modelling. It will teach you how to leverage the knowledge of attribution modelling in order to allocate marketing budget and understand buying behaviour.
Attribution Modelling in Google Ads and Facebook
This book has been written to help you implement attribution modelling in Google Ads (Google AdWords) and Facebook. It will teach you, how to leverage the knowledge of attribution modelling in order to understand the customer purchasing journey and determine the most effective marketing channels for investment.
About the Author
Himanshu Sharma
Founder, OptimizeSmart.com
Over 15 years of experience in digital analytics and marketing
Author of four best-selling books on digital analytics and conversion optimization
Nominated for Digital Analytics Association Awards for Excellence
Runs one of the most popular blogs in the world on digital analytics
Consultant to countless small and big businesses over the decade
Get the E-Book (50 Pages)
Get the FREE E-Book (50+ Pages)
