How to track the free sign-ups for an online service that requires email verification?

I'm tracking the free trial sign-ups for an online service that requires email verification to complete the sign-up process.

How do I create a goal to track the sign-ups given that email verification required?

The registration process is as follows:

1. Click on free signup button (goes to "/signup/")
2. Fill out sign-up form, including email address (goes to "/check_your_email/")
3. Click account verification li开发者_如何学JAVAnk in email.
4. Arrive at the new account confirmation page. I plan to define this URL ("/confirm/signup/username/hashcode/") as the goal

If the user closes their browser, then opens their browser, and clicks on email verification link, will the goal be tracked properly?

If the user closes their browser it will be considered a new visit when the browser opens up again to complete the sign-up process. This will increase the reported visit counts and you might also have problems with using visit level reports.

There could also be a problem if the user is not using their default browser then opens the link from an email program and their default browser is used.

You should probably set up two goals: one for the /check_your_email/ page and another for the verification page. That way you will be able to see if there's a significant drop-off between the two and work from there.

If you define "/confirm/signup/username/hashcode/" as the Goal, even if the user closes their browser and comes back to this page it will still be recorded as a Goal conversion.

You will have a problem with the conversion funnel : for those that did not confirm during the same visit, it will look like their visits dropped at the /check_your_email/ step, and you should see a similar number of visits coming from (direct) - email is usually recorded as Direct visits.

Also bear in mind to use appropriate Regular Expression if the confirmation URL varies with usernames.