Benefits of Archiving Unused Goals, Locations, and Audiences.

Boost Performance and Simplify Management by Archiving Unused Goals, Locations, and Audiences

THIS ARTICLE WILL HELP YOU UNDERSTAND:

• An overview of archiving
• Why Archive Unused Goals, Locations, and Audiences?
• How Archiving Works in Convert.com
• Automatic Archiving Option
• Best Practices for Archiving
• Conclusion

Overview

Managing the performance of your Convert.com tracking setup is crucial to maintaining a clean, fast, and efficient operation. One of the best ways to achieve this is by archiving goals, locations, and audiences that are no longer in use. This guide explains the benefits of archiving and how it can help you optimize your website's performance.

Why Archive Unused Goals, Locations, and Audiences?

1. Enhanced Performance
   • When goals, locations, and audiences that are no longer active remain unarchived, they still consume resources, potentially slowing down the tracking script's performance. This can lead to longer page load times and negatively impact user experience.
   • By archiving these elements, you ensure that only active and relevant data is being processed, making the tracking code more efficient.
2. Reduced Complexity in Account Management
   • Over time, as you create more experiments and goals, the number of elements in your account can grow significantly. This can make it difficult to navigate and manage.
   • Archiving unused items helps declutter your account, making it easier to focus on the elements that are currently important for your optimization strategy.
3. Avoiding Tracking Script Overload
   • Every unarchived goal or location adds to the complexity of the tracking code that runs on your website. If you have many unused items, this could slow down how quickly the tracking script loads and executes.
   • Archiving ensures that only relevant data is loaded into the script, which optimizes the speed and reliability of your experiments.

How Archiving Works in Convert.com

When you archive a goal, location, or audience in Convert.com, it is removed from the active tracking code but is still available for reference in past reports and data analysis. Here’s what happens when you archive these elements:

• Goals: They are no longer tracked in new experiments, but their data remains accessible in historical reports. Here is how you can archive Goals: 
  • Go to your Project
  • Open the Goals tab from the top bar
  • Open the meatballs menu next to the goal you need to archive, and click on Archive this Goal
    
    
• Locations: These are excluded from the tracking script, which can help reduce its size and improve loading speed. Here is how you can archive Locations: 
  • Go to your Project
  • Open the Locations tab from the top bar
  • Open the meatballs menu next to the location you need to archive, and click on Archive this Location
    
    
• Audiences: They will not trigger experiments for new visitors but will still appear in old data for analysis purposes. Here is how you can archive Audiences: 
  • Go to your Project
  • Open the Audiences tab from the top bar
  • Open the meatballs menu next to the audience you need to archive, and click on Archive this Audience
    
    

Automatic Archiving Option

Convert.com offers an option to automatically archive unused goals and locations. This feature can be enabled in the Project Configuration settings:

However, this automatic archiving doesn’t occur in isolation. It is triggered when a user archives an entire experience within that project. Here’s how it works:

• When a user archives an experience, all the goals, locations, and audiences associated with that specific experience are automatically archived as well.
• This ensures that if an experience is no longer active, the goals, locations, and audiences tied to it are also removed from the active tracking setup, as they are no longer in use.

• This automation reduces manual effort and ensures that your tracking setup remains optimized without constant oversight.

Best Practices for Archiving

1. Review Regularly: Periodically review your goals, locations, and audiences to determine which items are no longer relevant.
2. Enable Auto-Archive: Use the auto-archive feature to ensure that unused items are automatically removed from the active tracking setup.
3. Communicate with Your Team: Make sure all team members are aware of the archiving policy to avoid accidental reactivation of outdated elements.

Conclusion

Archiving unused goals, locations, and audiences is a proactive approach to maintaining a clean and high-performing Convert.com account. By reducing the load on your tracking code and ensuring that only active data is being processed, you can significantly improve your website's performance and user experience.