lete guide to Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is now the default analytics tool for millions users around the world.

Since its release four years back, Google has made a number of significant changes to GA4. You should learn all you can about the “new” GA4 analytics tool.

This guide will walk you through the basics and features of GA4 so that you can get started.

The Admin section

Before we get into the dashboard, let’s take a look at the basics of GA4.

You may notice there are only two columns in the Admin area instead of the usual three that we have used with Universal Analytics.

You can edit your account settings in the Account Settings by clicking on the Account Options .

The Filters section allows you to view your account’s filtering aggregated. If you want to exclude internal traffic or referrals, then all of these filters will be displayed here.

Filters can’t be created here. This is something that needs to be done under other sections.

We will only focus on those sections that you are likely to use right away.

Data Streams

Data streams contains the basic GA4 settings.

Here you can find the GA4 measurement ID as well as instructions for tagging, enhanced measurement settings and more.

Events allows you to create events in GA4.

I say “some”, because although GA4 looks like it can handle customized events, in reality, this event setup only works for destination-based events. (For example, when a user is redirected to a thank you page).

Conversions

You can mark any event as a conversion. While UA only allowed you to have 20 conversions for each account, GA4 allows up to 30.

Audiences

You can create custom audiences in your GA4 account.

Although they are used primarily for Google Ads (Google Adsense), SEOs can use them to measure user behavior and website activity.

Data Setting

Data settings is located about halfway down the admin menu.

Data settings is a crucial part of GA4 as it will dictate how you collect data. Data settings are divided into four sections.


Data collection

You will find an option in Data collection to enable Google Signals data collection.

Google signals are nothing new. However, with the new focus on privacy and data collection, they could have some serious consequences for your GA4 Account.

Google’s official statement:

By activating Google Signals, you allow Google Analytics to collect additional data on your traffic than the data that is collected by a standard Google Analytics implementation. This allows for features such as cross-device audiences or insights.

Google Analytics collects visitation data and associates it with Google account information of users signed in who have given consent to this association. This is done for the purposes of ad personalization. Google data may include location, search histories, YouTube histories, and data from Google partner sites. This information is aggregated to give you anonymous insights about your users’ behavior across devices. You acknowledge that you adhere to the Google Advertising Features Policy including the rules regarding sensitive categories. Your end users have been informed of their rights and privacy and you are able to enable these features.

You can use the data you collect by turning on Google Signals for demographic purposes and retargeting.

Google will begin sampling your account based on a threshold.

You can see a small red icon. This means that thresholding is applied to your account, and you will be limited in the amount of data you can view within your GA4 account. The data is still there , just not visible.

If you see a green tick (like below), you’re viewing data that is 100% unsampled.

What should you do about Google signals?

It’s best to disable paid search if you don’t run any.

You don’t need to have it on unless you are interested in demographic data.


Data Retention

Data retention controls the data retention period of cookies, advertising identifiers and user identifiers. The default setting for data retention is two months.

Google Analytics 360 users, however, can extend the period to an even longer 14-month period.

This also impacts the range of data you can use for your explorations.


Data Filters

Data filters is where you can create any filters and activate them. This section is currently all about filtering internal traffic or developer traffic.

Although the option of creating a filter exists, you cannot filter IP addresses out.

You would have to:

It can be confusing for first-time users as they must navigate to another section in order to create a true filter.


Channel Groups

Channel groups is a new addition in the GA4 wheelhouse that allows you to add or update channel groupings.

Google offers you the option to customize these settings.

You can attribute specific campaigns to your custom channels.

You can create custom channels for incoming traffic if, for example, you run several paid campaigns in unique locations.

This is a more advanced feature but one that’s nice to have.

DebugView

Debugview allows you to test events and conversions without having to fumble around in the real-time reports as you did in UA.

After you have created your own events and ensure that they are tracked, you can then see them in order.

Connecting tools

You will find a new section under the GA4 Account Options called Product Link.

You can also link to other Google products, such as Google Ads and BigQuery.

It is easy to connect. Simply click on the product that you wish to link, and then select the blue Link button in the upper-right corner.

You must be an administrator on both products to which you are linking. You cannot link the two products if you only have view-only access.

The dashboard

You’ll immediately notice that your dashboard has a completely new look.

You’ll see a number of widgets and a row with the most recent accesses. There are also additional cards that have various metrics and dimensions.

You can also find the following menus on the left-hand side of the dashboard:

Home

You will see the Dashboard when you log in for the first time.

Reports

You may see different items. You will see this if you create your GA4 account between April and May 2023.

You will see this when you create your account and April to May 2023.

I don’t think it is necessary to combine Business Objectives with Life Cycle because they are the same reports and have some crossover.

In this guide I will use the Business Objectives section, as it’s guaranteed to be present in every GA4 account.


Acquisition

Acquisition does exactly what it says: it allows you to see the number of users who have visited your website.

The Overview Report looks similar to your homepage and provides some basic metrics.

user acquisition and Traffic acquisition reports are two different reports.

If a user landed first on your website via a paid advertisement and later returned through an organic session, the Report User Acquisition would attribute this user to “Paid search” for Both Sessions.

The Traffic Acquisition report would attribute One Session to “Paid Search”, and One Session to “Organic Search”.

What you choose depends on your needs. Traffic acquisition is the most popular option, as it will breakdown each session by the last attribution.


Engagement

You will find Engagement under Acquisition. This is where you’ll likely spend the majority of your time with GA4.

This will show you how many users there are, as well as the number of sessions, events and conversions. If you are responsible for creating monthly or quarterly reports, this is where to begin.


Events

Events will show you your events. In UA, page views and other items were tracked as hits. They are now tracked as events. Now, everything is an event.

You can create up to 500 event names unique per account, since everything is an event. The maximum conversions per account is 30.

Here you will find all of your events, both those automatically collected and custom-made. This includes any events that are marked as conversions.


Conversions

You will find any event you have marked as a “conversion” in the Report.

You will also see your total conversions, users and any additional metrics that you wish to include.


Screens and Pages

Screens and pages allows you to track pageviews in real-time. You can see which pages are being visited on your site.

A dropdown menu will appear above the page row. This will show the dimensions. You can change Path into Title, or Content Group.

In general, I prefer to use Page Path as I am more likely than not to recognize the URL of a page title.


Landing Pages

Landing Pageswill become the report of choice for digital marketers. This is especially true for SEOs, who use landing page sessions to base their reporting.

Landing Page is very similar to the screens and pages report. The primary dimension cannot be changed (for example, to the preferred landing page + query string).


Monetization

Monetization will take up a large part of the time spent by ecommerce marketing professionals.


Ecommerce purchases

You can see the revenue and statistics for all items in your online store.

GA4 has added a few handy metrics that will give you a better idea of the user’s behavior.


User purchase journey

This report is very interesting as it provides a visual representation of users’ buying behaviors.

You can edit this in Explorations or create your own funnel here and export it.

Here you can find out about any problems or pain points that may arise during the buyer journey.

User

User gives details about users, including what devices and demographic data they used.


User Attributes

You will find Description as well as Demographic information under User attributes.

The demographic data is broken down in a way that I find more detailed than other reports.

The Report on Demographic Details allows you to dig into specific metrics by demographic dimension.

Here you can see revenue breakdowns by city, country and user.


Tech

The same applies to tech as it does to demographics.

The Overview Report gives you an overview of multiple dimensions such as operating systems, device categories, browsers and screen resolution.

You can view metrics in the Tech Details report by dimension. You can ensure that your Smart TV traffic doesn’t fall behind.

Advertisement

Advertisement gives you a quick overview of what your Google Ads dashboard might look like. Only if you have paid campaigns will data be displayed.


All Channels

You can see the conversion rate of your website.

Here you can see a breakdown on conversions, revenue, ROI, and cost/conversion. Here you can see the results of different campaigns and channels.


Model comparison

Model Comparison has recently changed dramatically, as Google removed certain attribution models in this report. The two main models are “Data-driven”, and “Last Click”.

You may be able see older attribution models depending on when you created your account. However, newer accounts only offer two options.

These models are still useful for reporting and analyzing your data. These models are not available unless your campaigns are paid.


Conversion Paths

Conversion Paths allows you to examine the touchpoints for users by channel group, campaign, source, and medium.

This area is only available to users who have paid for campaigns.

Search for daily newsletters that marketers use.

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Terms.

Let’s create some custom reports that you can use.

Conversions and events

The events and conversions you track are essential for measuring your KPIs. They also help to understand the user’s behavior on your site. It’s a little different from how you may be used to setting them up in Universal Analytics.

Basics

The traditional event categories, event labels, and event actions are gone. We now have an event.

Each event has unique parameters that define it.

These can be destination-based or GA4 recommended events. Others may be custom setups such as opening a chat room or clicking a button.

Conversion based on destination

Click Create an event. Click Create.

Here you’ll need to give your event a name and specify some parameters.

You must remember that all in the GA4 system is classified as a page view, so it’s important to set the event_name parameters to .

We need to decide where the event will take place. Say we’ve got a thank-you page that is simple after a lead-generation event.

The final product should look something like this:

Click Create at the top-right corner to finish. Voila! Your first destination-based events is ready.

How do you convert it?

Go to the Conversions menu. Click New Conversion Event and enter the event name.

Now your event has been converted!

We need to test the conversion. You can do this in a number of ways.

Other Custom Events

Google Tag Manager is required to create any additional custom events. It would be impossible to cover all the steps, but we will go over the basics.

Select Add new Tag in your GTM container.

You will see the Create A Tag Window, which allows you to create your tag from scratch.

Click on GA4 event after naming the tag.

You can choose it if your measurement ID has already been loaded into GTM. You can enter it manually in Configuration tag if you don’t have one.

You should now enter the event name in GA4 exactly as you would like it to appear.

As stated above, you have a wide range of options.

You can then follow the steps above to convert it.

Customizing GA4

The basic reports may provide some useful information but they are not always the best option.

Customizing GA4 to your needs is one of the most appealing features. You can create and customize a variety of reports that will give you better insight.

Customize metrics, dimensions and filters to create reports that are easy to find.

Landing pages for organic search

An organic landing page report should be a staple for every SEO.

Click on Landing page.

Click on the pencil icon at the top right corner.

Click on Add Filter once that has loaded. You will be taken to a new section where you can choose your dimension.

Select Session default group by typing or scrolling down. Select “Organic Search” under Dimension Values.

This is what the final product looks like.

Click Ok, then Apply. You now have your dashboard for organic landing pages.

This can be taken a step further by adding additional filters to your report.

You may want to only see blog pages. Click +Add a New Condition.

You can choose Landing Page + query string for all pages that contain .

Your report will now filter organic sessions down to your blog section.

You’ll want your changes saved before you leave.

You will notice a blue button after making changes. It is best to save the report as a brand new one.

You can then return to the original report to create additional dashboards. ).

After clicking Save Changes as a New Report you can name the report and exit.

The Library

You will notice a library icon on the main reports screen. Click that.

Click Edit collection and select the Lifecycle card.

We can easily drag and drop our custom report into life cycle. Here is the first one: Organic landing pages.

Repeat this step to add any additional reports to your GA4 dashboard.

Explorations

Explorers was originally a feature of UA 360. It is now one of the most important features of GA4, and has its own section.

Google describes Explorer “a collection advanced techniques that goes beyond standard reports to uncover deeper insights into your customers’ behaviors.”

Explorer allows you to dig deeper into data than the standard reports that come with GA4.

Click on the squiggly icon in the menu to get to Explorers.

You’ll find a variety of template options.

Explorations can be classified into:

Today, we’ll only look at a few examples of exploration. There could be many articles on each type.

Free Form

You’ve already seen how to create a customized report. An exploration lets you go a little deeper. You can customize everything to suit your needs by creating a Top Pages Exploration.

Start by selecting the option Blank in the Explorations section. This exploration should be named “Top Organic Pages.”

You’ll then need to create a segment that focuses on organic users. Select Session Segment by clicking on the “+” sign next to segments.

Next, you will need to import metrics and dimensions into your exploration.

Click the “+” sign next to Dimensions. Search for “landing pages” in the top bar and choose the first option you see. Choose “session source/medium”, and import it as well.

Let’s now bring in some metrics. Here are some basic and vital metrics that you should be capturing:

We can now start construction.

Add your dimensions to the rows and metrics to the values.

You’ll see the data populate in your exploration.

In a sense, explorations are endless. They can be tailored to suit your needs.

Exploration of funnels

It is easier to explore a funnel and it’s a must-have for any online business. You can see how customers move through a funnel, and where they drop off.

You will see a standard funnel in the Exploration section.

The funnel and its basic metrics are shown.

Let’s create a Contact Us funnel. We will start with the Contact Us and finish on a Thank You.

Click the pencil icon in the Steps section of your funnel.

You can now start adding steps to your funnel.

When I set up the segment parameters, I chose the event “page_view.”

Then, I added a condition to “page_location”, which contains the text “contact us-start”.

There are other ways to do this. For example, you could use the page title or full URL. However, I chose this method.

I then added some more steps. This is what it looks like.

Funnel options

You probably noticed that there are different funnel options when you were going through the funnel. Here’s a quick summary:

Path Exploration

This is a more flexible version of the old UA.

You can, for example, choose any event or page as your starting point or endpoint (with an event count that is meaningful).

Click on Path Exploration in your Explorers dashboard to create one.

Click the Restart button at the top right corner to begin anew.

Choose Start Point when asked to choose your starting point or ending point.

Say you want to analyze user behavior after landing on a particular blog page. Select Page Path and Screen Class by clicking on Beginning Point.

There are several options for you to select. Use the search bar in the upper-right corner of the page to find it quickly.

Click on the blue nodes after selecting your starting point to see how users navigate through your website.

Follow these steps if you want to include more than one blog or category page within the same path:

Ending Point can be used in the opposite direction. This can be very useful to track where users came from when they arrive at a particular page or conversion on your website.

Click on the blue nodes, then move backwards.

Get used to GA4

It’s clear that GA4 is going to take some time to get used. There will be bumps in the road with a new dashboard and metrics, new dimensions, as well as a different way to track.

This guide will help you to understand the basic features of GA4 so that you can customize it to your needs or those of your clients.

Most screenshots were taken using the GA4 Google Merch Shop Demo Account, unless otherwise stated.

The article Google Analytics 4: a complete guide first appeared on Search Engine land.

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