In gas, a goal is one measurable target: you pick a metric, one profile or ad account, enter a goal value and a deadline. gas then calculates by itself how far along you are and shows it as a percentage of progress. This is useful whenever you agree on a concrete number with a client or with management, for example 10,000 followers on Facebook by the end of the year, or CZK 300,000 of ad spend for a campaign period.
You will find goals in the left menu under Goals.
Before you start
Three things have to be true before a goal can be created.
- Your role in the customer account is Administrator or User. A Viewer can see goals but cannot create, edit or delete them. If you cannot see the button for creating a goal at all, you have the Viewer role and you need to ask an Administrator to change it.
- The profile or ad account you want to measure is connected to this customer account. You will find an overview of what is connected in Settings → Customer account → Linked accounts. Without a connection, no profile is offered in the goal form. Connecting is described in the articles in the Connecting services category.
- You have not used up your goal limit. How many goals a customer account may have is set by its plan. You will find the current usage and the ceiling in Settings → Customer account → Subscription, and it is described in detail in the article Limits and usage.
Step by step
- In the left menu, click Goals.
- Above the table on the left, click the Create goal button. If you do not have any goals yet, the same button is in the middle of the empty page under the text stating that you have no goals yet. The New goal window opens.
- In the Goal name field, type the name for the goal. The field is optional, but it pays off to fill it in: in the goal list, an unnamed goal shows only the text (no name).
- For the Goal is intended... option, choose who the goal belongs to. The option ... for the account (followed by the abbreviation of your customer account) means everyone in the team will see the goal. The option ... only for me means only you will see it.
- In the Metric field, select what you want to measure. The list is split by network and you can type in it, so just type part of the name and the list narrows down. A full overview is below in the section Which metrics you can choose.
- In the Profile field, select the specific page, profile, channel or ad account. This field appears only after you select a metric and it offers only what is connected to this customer account and what belongs to the selected metric.
- In the Goal value field, enter the number you want to reach.
- Fill in End date, that is the date by which you want the goal to be met. For some metrics, a Start date field also appears, this is explained right after the steps.
- Look at the figure below the fields. gas shows there how the profile is doing right now, either as Actual value or as Value for the last 30 days. That tells you whether the goal value you entered is realistic.
- Click Create goal. The window closes and the new goal appears in the list.
Start date and end date
Both dates are not offered for every metric. It depends on how the given metric is calculated.
- Metrics that measure a value at a point in time (typically the number of followers) have only the End date field. When you save, gas remembers the value you were at on that day and then calculates progress from the current value against the goal value. Below the fields you will see the label Actual value.
- Metrics that add up over a period (impressions, reach, clicks, spend, views) have both the Start date and the End date field. For these, gas adds up values only between the two dates. Below the fields you will see the label Value for the last 30 days, which is a rough comparison with the past month.
The start date must be earlier than the end date, otherwise the form refuses to save. Set the end date in the future: a goal whose deadline has already passed is no longer recalculated automatically.
Enter the goal value for ad spend in Czech crowns. For the Ad spend metric in Meta Ads, the form shows the currency of your ad account below the field (for example USD or EUR), but progress is calculated from the spend converted into crowns at the exchange rate. If you entered the amount in a foreign currency, the progress figure would make no sense. The same rule applies to spend in Google Ads, Sklik and Pinterest Ads. The text next to the field also reminds you that the amount is entered without VAT.
Which metrics you can choose
The list of metrics is fixed and always contains all ten groups, including networks that your customer account has not connected. Filtering happens only in the next step: the Profile field offers only what is connected. So if you choose a metric from a network you do not use, the Profile field stays empty and the goal cannot be saved.
| Group | In the Profile field you select | Metrics |
|---|---|---|
| a connected page | Page fans, Page followers, Page impressions, Page reach, Page visits, Page posts published, Page post impressions, Page content engagements, Page content reactions, Page content shares, Page content comments, Page video views, Page ratings | |
| a connected profile | Profile followers, Profile posts published, Profile stories published, Profile impressions, Profile reach, Profile visits, Profile engagements | |
| Meta Ads | an ad account | Ad spend, Ad reach, Ad impressions, Ad clicks, Link clicks, All unique clicks of the account's campaigns, Interactions of the account's campaigns, Unique interactions of the account's campaigns, Views of videos longer than 30 seconds |
| YouTube | a channel | Channel subscribers gained, Channel video views, Watch time of channel videos, Channel videos published, Channel video shares, Likes on channel videos, Dislikes on channel videos |
| Google Ads | a Google Ads account | Ad spend, Ad impressions, Ad clicks, Click-through rate (CTR), Ad interactions, Conversions, Conversion value, Video views |
| Website | a Google Analytics property | Users, New users, Sessions, Page views, Average session duration, Bounce rate |
| Sklik | a Sklik account | Ad spend, Ad impressions, Ad clicks, Conversions |
| TikTok | a connected profile | Profile followers, Accounts the profile follows, Profile likes, Profile videos published, Profile video views |
| a connected profile | Profile followers, Profile impressions, User engagement, Profile pin saves, Profile pins published, Pin outbound clicks | |
| Pinterest Ads | a Pinterest ad account | Ad spend, Ad impressions, Ad reach, Ad conversions |
What is not in the table cannot be chosen as a goal. This mainly concerns derived indicators such as cost per click, cost per thousand impressions or engagement rate. The only exception is Click-through rate (CTR) in Google Ads. You can look at such indicators in the section of the given network, but you cannot build a goal on them.
Watch out for the difference between the organic and the advertising part of the same network. Facebook and Instagram are profile groups, Meta Ads is an advertising group. Pinterest is a profile group, Pinterest Ads is an advertising one. In advertising groups, the Profile field offers ad accounts, not profiles.
What happens next
The window closes and the new goal appears in the list on the Goals page.
- Progress is not calculated that very second. The Progress and Progress value columns stay empty for a while. gas recalculates goals continuously, so you will usually see the first value within a few minutes. If you do not want to wait, click the goal name to open its detail, which starts the calculation right away.
- After that, progress refreshes on its own, roughly once every quarter of an hour, as long as the goal period is running.
- The goal detail contains a graph with three lines: actual results, the goal line and a forecast. It is described in detail in the article Tracking and editing goals.
- You can no longer change the metric or the profile of an existing goal. Both fields are inactive when editing. You can change the name, who the goal belongs to, the goal value and the dates. If you need a different metric, create a new goal.
A faster route: a copy of an existing goal
If you repeat the same goal every year or you create it for several profiles, you do not have to fill in the form again.
- In the goal list, find the row with the goal you want to repeat.
- In the Actions column, click the Duplicate goal icon (two sheets of paper).
- The Goal duplication window opens with prefilled values. The suffix (copy) is added to the name and the period moves to the current year. If the end date would fall in the past, it moves another year forward so that it is in the future.
- Check the values, change the profile or the goal value if needed, and click Create goal.
The metric of a copy cannot be changed, the profile can.
Common problems
I cannot find what I want to measure in the list of metrics
The list contains only the metrics from the table above and it cannot be extended. Most often what is missing are derived indicators such as cost per click or engagement rate. Choose the closest metric the table offers, or watch the value in the section of the given network.
I selected a metric, but the Profile field is empty
The list of metrics shows all networks regardless of what your customer account has connected, so an empty Profile field means that no profile or account is connected for that network yet. Check Settings → Customer account → Linked accounts and use the switcher in the top bar to make sure you are in the right customer account. If it is a metric from Meta Ads, Google Ads, Sklik or Pinterest Ads, the form looks for an ad account, not a profile, and that is connected separately.
Instead of the current value, a spinner keeps turning below the form
gas is trying to load how the selected profile is doing right now. If that fails, the spinner stays. The usual reason is a freshly connected profile whose data is still being downloaded, or a paused connection to the network. You can save the goal anyway, progress will be calculated as soon as the data arrives.
The goal was saved, but I cannot see it in the list
The goal list follows the period selected in the page header. By default it shows goals that at least overlap with the period. When the Only goals in this period switch is on, only goals that fall entirely within the selected period remain. Widen the period or turn the switch off. Another possible reason: a goal created with the ... only for me option really is visible only to the person who created it, other team members do not see it.
Progress stays empty or does not move
There can be several causes, go through them one by one.
- The goal is new and progress has not been calculated yet. Open its detail, which starts the calculation right away.
- The end date has already passed. After the deadline, the goal is not recalculated automatically and stays at the last result.
- Data from the network arrives with a delay, today's numbers may not be complete. How often each network is updated is described in the article How often data is updated.
- The connection to the network is paused, that is gas lost access to the platform. You will see the status in Settings → Connected services, and restoring it is described in the article Reconnecting after access expires.
- You selected the Facebook metric Page content reactions, Page content shares or Page content comments. These three metrics can be chosen, but they do not return a value yet, so progress stays empty. Use Page content engagements instead, which sums up interactions with content together.
We have a lot of goals and some of them stopped updating their progress
Only as many goals are recalculated automatically as the plan allows, and the oldest ones take priority. If you have more, typically after downgrading the plan, the newer goals stop. Either delete the goals you do not need, or have your plan increased.
The Create goal button is grey and cannot be clicked
You have used up your goal limit. When you hover over it, a message appears in the form of Goal limit reached, 6 of 6, and a notice bar is shown above the table. Increase the plan, or delete a goal you no longer need.
I cannot see the button for creating a goal at all
Your role in the customer account is Viewer, which may only view goals. Ask the Administrator of the customer account to change your role.
The form cannot be saved
The most common cause is that the start date is the same as or later than the end date. Both dates must be in this order and they must not be identical. Also check that the required fields Metric, Profile and Goal value are filled in.
For an ad account in a foreign currency, progress comes out nonsensical
The goal value for spend has to be entered in Czech crowns. gas converts the spend from the ad account currency into crowns at the exchange rate, so a goal entered in euros, for example, is compared against an amount in crowns and progress then comes out several times off. The metric of an existing goal cannot be changed, but the goal value can: open the goal for editing and rewrite the amount in crowns.