A Comprehensive Guide to Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

GA4 is Google’s response to evolving analytics needs and privacy concerns. It helps businesses comply with regulations like GDPR and CCPA while collecting and analysing cross-platform data. GA4 ensures privacy compliance while providing valuable insights for informed decision-making.

Critical differences between older Google Analytics and GA4 include event-centric tracking, cross-platform insights, machine learning capabilities, new and removed metrics, enhanced privacy features, simplified implementation, customer lifecycle reporting, BigQuery integration, intuitive data exploration, and predictive metrics. GA4 offers businesses advanced tracking, analysis, and reporting capabilities for a more comprehensive understanding of user behaviour and improved decision-making.

1. Event-Centric Tracking: GA4 captures user interactions above and beyond page views, such as button clicks and video plays, providing a detailed understanding of user behaviour.
2. Comprehensive Cross-Platform Tracking: GA4 allows businesses to track and analyse user interactions across websites, mobile apps, and offline sources, enabling a holistic view of the customer journey.
3. Leveraging Machine Learning: GA4 incorporates advanced analytics capabilities using Google’s AI algorithms, uncovering patterns, identifying trends, and providing actionable recommendations.
4. New Metrics and Visualisation: GA4 introduces new metrics based on “engagement” while providing enhanced data visualisation to make it easier to interpret and spot trends.
5. Simplified Implementation: GA4 offers a simplified implementation process, requiring minimal code changes for setup and configuration.
6. Enhanced User Privacy: GA4 prioritises user privacy with enhanced data controls and automatic data deletion after a specified retention period.
7. Customer Lifecycle Reporting: GA4 introduces the concept of the customer lifecycle, enabling businesses to track user interactions at different stages of the customer journey.
8. BigQuery Integration: GA4 integrates natively with Google BigQuery, allowing businesses to export raw, unsampled data for advanced analysis.
9. Exploration and Analysis: GA4 provides an intuitive interface called “Explore” for ad-hoc analysis, custom reports, and generating insights using drag-and-drop functionality.
10. Predictive Metrics and Cross-Domain Measurement: GA4 offers predictive metrics to estimate user behaviour probabilities and simplifies cross-domain tracking within a single property.

To get started with GA4, follow these straightforward steps for a seamless setup.

1. Create a GA4 Property: Sign in to your Google Analytics account, create a new property, and choose “Web” or “App” based on your tracking requirements.
2. Add Tracking Code: Implement the GA4 tracking code on your website or app as instructed by Google. This implementation ensures accurate data collection.
3. Configure Data Streams: For websites, provide details like URL, domain, and associated app to configure the data stream. For apps, link the app to the Firebase project and complete the setup.
4. Set Up Enhanced Measurement: Enable enhanced measurement to track key events and interactions without additional coding automatically. This includes page views, scrolls, outbound clicks, video engagement, and more.

Event tracking in GA4 empowers businesses to monitor and analyse specific user interactions, going beyond basic page views. Follow these steps to set up event tracking effectively.

1. Define Your Events: Determine the actions you want to track, like button clicks or video plays.
2. Implement Event Code: Use the provided GA4 event code to track events, adding custom parameters for more context.
3. Analyse Event Data: View and analyse event data in GA4’s reporting interface to identify user behaviour patterns and optimise your website or app.

GA4 offers robust reporting capabilities to extract valuable insights from your data. Businesses can gain valuable insights, improve user experiences, and drive better results.

1. Flexible Exploration: GA4 analyse data flexibly, combining dimensions, metrics, and segments while applying filters to uncover trends and make data-driven decisions.
2. User-Centric Analysis: Understand individual user journeys, track interactions across touchpoints, and optimise experiences to improve conversions.
3. Funnel Analysis: Visualise user steps towards goals, identify drop-off points, and optimise marketing strategies for higher conversions.
4. Predictive Metrics: Leverage machine learning to forecast user behaviour, understand the likelihood of actions, and tailor marketing efforts accordingly.
5. Custom Reporting: Create tailored reports with chosen dimensions, metrics, and visualisations, focusing on business-specific metrics for actionable insights.

1. Clear Objectives: Define goals and KPIs to focus your analysis and extract meaningful insights.
2. Custom Dimensions and Metrics: Utilise GA4’s customisations to capture unique data points and gain deeper insights.
3. Advanced Segmentation: GA4 help you Analyse specific audience segments to understand preferences and behaviours.
4. Event and Conversion Monitoring: Track and optimise fundamental interactions to improve marketing campaigns and conversions.
5. Continuous Testing and Optimisation: Use GA4 insights to test strategies, measure impact, and enhance user experiences.
6. Gain Insights at a Glance: Explore the home page, which summarises traffic, conversions, and revenue. It’s a handy way to check if everything is on track quickly.
7. Real-Time Monitoring: Utilise the Real-time Report to track events as they happen within the past 30 minutes. Confirm tracking code functionality, observe the impact of YouTube videos, and stay updated on new product launches in real-time.
8. Uncover User Details: Take advantage of the “View User Snapshot” feature in the Real-time Report. It offers a comprehensive view of individual users, including their device, location, and real-time engagement through triggered events.
9. Understand User Journey: Dive into the Life Cycle reports, which map the user conversion funnel. Analyse how users enter the funnel and their behaviour throughout, gaining valuable insights for optimising your marketing strategies.
10. Explore User Reports: GA4 provides user reports on demographics, technology, events, and conversions. These understandings help you understand your audience better and tailor your approaches to meet their preferences.

To create a new analysis in GA4, follow these steps:

1. Login to your Google Analytics account.
2. Click on “Analysis” in the navigation menu.
3. Select the technique you want to use to analyse your data from the options available in the Analysis Hub.
4. Customise your analysis by selecting variables, adjusting settings, and adding segments, dimensions, and metrics.
5. Choose the visualisation type and configure the report layout.
6. Interact with the data by right-clicking on data points in the visualisation.

1. Accessing Analysis Hub: Login to your Google Analytics Account and click on Analysis. Navigate to the Graph icon with a magnifying glass in the bottom left corner under Explore.
2. Reading Analysis Hub Reports: The interface consists of the Variables Column, Tab Settings Column, Segments, Dimensions, Metrics, Visualization, Values, Tabs, and Display options.
3. Variables Column: Select the desired data for analysis, including date range, segments (groups of users), dimensions (items to analyse), and metrics (quantitative measures).
4. Tab Settings Column: Specify the analysis technique, add dimensions and metrics, and apply segments. Customise the report to suit your needs.
5. Segments: Compare and contrast user groups by dragging and dropping segments onto the report. You can also create your segments.
6. Dimensions: Analyse specific aspects such as event count, active users, or transactions. Drag and drop dimensions as rows or columns in the Tab Settings area.
7. Metrics: Add metrics to provide numerical data for analysis. Please place them in the Values area in Tab Settings.
8. Visualisation: Choose the desired visualisation format, such as a table, pie chart, or line graph, to represent your data effectively.
9. Values: Drag metrics to display as columns in the report. Choose the appropriate cell type, such as a bar chart, plain text, or heat map.
10. Tabs: Create multiple accounts within an analysis, each containing different visualisations. Each analysis can have up to 10 tabs.
11. Interacting with Data: Right-click on data points within the visualisations to interact and explore more insights.

• Exploration: Provides more significant control over data visualisation, with options for anomaly detection.
• Funnel Analysis: Visualise users’ steps to complete an event and evaluate their success at each stage.
• Path Analysis: Utilise a tree graph to visualise user behaviour flow and identify looping patterns.
• Segment Overlap: Analyse the overlap between user segments based on specific conditions.
• Cohort Analysis: Study groups of users with common characteristics, such as acquisition date or conversion, to understand their behaviour.
• User Lifetime: Uncover valuable insights about user lifetime revenue, acquisition sources, and campaign performance using predictive models in GA4.

Creating GA4 accounts before the deadlines is crucial for a smooth transition and uninterrupted data collection.

Important Dates:

• July 1st, 2023: Standard UA accounts stop data collection.
• July 1st, 2024: GA360 UA accounts cease data collection.

In conclusion, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) offers an advanced analytics platform with enhanced tracking capabilities, comprehensive reporting, and a user-centric approach. By understanding the differences between GA4 and older versions of Google Analytics, setting up GA4 properly, utilising event tracking, and leveraging the various reporting features, businesses can gain valuable insights to drive growth, optimise user experiences, and make data-driven decisions in an ever-evolving digital landscape.