![\"Automated](\"https:\/\/oko.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Automated-alerts.png\")
<\/p>\nWhilst there are measures that can be taken to reduce \u201csurprises\u201d with your website, there are so many things that can potentially go wrong that it is impossible to ensure against everything.\u00a0 Sometimes the best we can do is to make sure that we are made quickly aware of problems and are able to react.<\/p>\n
One of my favourite tools to alert me of issues is a much-utilised feature in Google Analytics: Intelligence Events Custom Alerts. This easy-to-use feature allows you to set up criteria that you want to be notified about.<\/p>\n
Creating a custom alert takes about two minutes.\u00a0 If you are a Google Analytics user and are not using custom alerts then try this now \u2013 it\u2019s a great investment in time.\u00a0 We\u2019ll create an alert to email you if your website stops receiving visitors.<\/p>\n
Custom Alerts can be found under \u201cIntelligence Events\u201d in the reporting view. Standard Intelligence Events are metrics that Google Analytics feels warrant flagging.\u00a0 These are useful, but we\u2019ll be using the Custom Alerts tag today.<\/p>\n
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Click on the Custom Alerts Tag tab then the Manage custom alerts button to see any that you have already created.\u00a0 The red NEW ALERT button will allow you to create your own custom alert.<\/p>\n
![\"Automated](\"https:\/\/oko.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Automated-alerts-2.png\")
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The new alert form has X fields you can use to create your alert:<\/p>\n
Alert name<\/strong>: A label so that you can identify this alert later Definitely have this as a daily alert to find out if either your site is down or analytics isn\u2019t collecting your data correctly.<\/p>\n This applies to: All Traffic Alerts don\u2019t just have to be for bad stuff.\u00a0 Knowing when traffic is spiking can allow you to capitalise on events.\u00a0 Look back at your own historic data to see what sort of % increase is appropriate for your website.<\/p>\n This applies to: All Traffic The inverse of the spike.<\/p>\n This applies to: All Traffic Site updates can sometimes introduce a bug that sends bounce rates skyrocketing.\u00a0 You can get a similar result by monitoring average visitor duration.<\/p>\n This applies to: All Traffic Algorithm updates, errant robots.txt files or even manual penalties can cause sudden traffic drops and fast action can aid quick recovery.<\/p>\n This applies to: Medium \/ Matches exactly \/ organic
\nApply to<\/strong>: Which views you want this alert to be set up for (if you have multiple websites\/views you can create a single alert to monitor them all)
\nPeriod<\/strong>: Choose whether this should run daily, weekly or monthly
\nSend me an email when this alert triggers<\/strong>: This will send an email to the email address on the account that you are logged into
\nSetup your mobile phone<\/strong>: Google Analytics can also send the alert to your mobile phone.\u00a0 At the time of writing this feature was still only available for mobile numbers in the USA.
\nAlert conditions<\/strong>: this is where you define the criteria that will trigger the alert.\u00a0 I\u2019ve included examples of some that I find useful below.<\/p>\nCustom alert: No data (panic!)<\/h2>\n
\nAlert me when: Sessions \/ Is less than \/ 1<\/p>\nCustom alert: Traffic spike<\/h2>\n
\nAlert me when: Sessions \/ increases by more than \/ 20% \/ Same day in the previous week<\/p>\nCustom alert: Traffic drop<\/h2>\n
\nAlert me when: Sessions \/ decreases by more than \/ 20% \/ Same day in the previous week<\/p>\nCustom alert: Bounce Rate<\/h2>\n
\nAlert me when: Bounce Rate \/ increases by more than \/ 10% \/ Same day in the previous week<\/p>\nCustom alert: Drop in organic search traffic<\/h2>\n
\nAlert me when: Sessions \/ decreases by more than \/ 20% \/ Same day in the previous week<\/p>\nLimitations and workarounds<\/h2>\n