Are you new to Regular Expressions aka “regex”? I use Google Analytics regularly to monitor most of my clients’ websites. Its a great tool and I especially love setting up Goals and tracking conversions. Unfortunately, if you don’t set them up properly or are unable to take advantage of this product’s capabilities, you’ll miss out on some really insightful data. Some of my friends and colleagues asked me how to use regex in the past while setting up their goals, so I’d like to share what I taught them.

I found the Google Analytics’ Examples of Regular Expressions to be very useful and informative, but was missing a key component for my friends – a way to try and test what you’ve learned and get immediate feedback to let you know if you were doing it correctly.

Here’s how you can start learning about using Regular Expressions with Google Analytics and how to practice what you’ve learned:

1. Read and study Google Analytics’ Examples of Regular Expressions
2. Open a new tab or browser Regex101.com

Regex101.com is a free, very easy to use and intuitive regex testing tool that gives you instant feedback about your regular expression skills.

Enjoy!