GA4 uses events for bloody everything.
You’ll need to set up one type of events – conversions, whilst others are set up for you.
Benefits of GA 4 Include:
- You can track across app and website
- Visualise buyer journeys easier
- Easier to customise reports
- BigQuery Exports
- You can ask questions and get quick answers (in the search box at the top)
Things to note:
“bounce rate” in GA4 – is the opposite of engagement rate. So if engagement rate in GA4 is 60%, then bounce rate is 40%
Find Engagement rate in REPORTS > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition
You can add a filter (top left of screen – by the page title) – to filter to specific pages
GA4 Home screen
The home screen gives you a summary or snap shot of your websites performance.
On the top right are real time stats
On the second row, you have recently viewed reports
Below is “insights”, which help you interpret the data
Reports
Reports tab gives a number of prebuilt reports:
Lifecycle Reports
-Acquisition
Where visitors are coming from
-Engagement
What people are doing on the site
-Monetization
What people are buying (on eCommerce sites)
-Demographics and tech
Shows you stuff like visitor age, and what device they are using
EXPLORE SECTION
in this area you can create lots of visuals and insightful reports
ADVERTISING SECTION
purely for Google ads reports
CONFIGURATION SECTION
in the configure section, you can mark events as conversions, create audiences , set up custom dimensions and metrics, and access the debug view to test you’ve implemented stuff correctly.
Useful reports
Traffic sources – where are your visitors coming from, and where are the best visitors coming from
Reports- Acquisition > traffic acquisition
“Engaged traffic” an engaged session = been on your site more than 10 seconds, or visited 2 or more pages or converted
the traffic acquisition report let’s you see how engaged different source s of traffic are. For example, you can compare organic engagement rate vs paid ads.
in the Event Count, and conversions columns, you can click and choose from a dropdown menu which conversions you want to populate the data in the table.
EXPLORE
A good report to start out with in the explore section, is traffic sources.
Click “Free Form” to start.
On the default table, close the geo column by closing “town/city” on the left side of the screen
Go to DIMENSIONS on the left, click the +
Search for “default channel group” and tick the check box and click “IMPORT”
drag default channel grouping, into the rows area.
Now, for eCommerce, you’ll want to know the value each channel is bringing
On the left side, under VALUES, you’ll want to add transactions (scroll down to see VALUES, it’s below COLUMNS).
EXPLORE > FREE FROM
you can add country and other dimensions to the columns, and see which traffic source from which country (or town or something), drives the most value in terms of purchases or form submissions.
To learn more and isolate a channel, right click and select “include only selected”
for any referral traffic report, you can click the + above DIMENSIONS and search for and select “source”. You can then see which websites are referring the highest quality traffic
click the + icons to search for variables:
PATH EXPLORATION
see how people are journeying through you site
note “screens” is referring to mobile apps
e.g. the pages and screens report, “screens” refers to mobile apps
Useful premade reports:
REPORTING > ENGAGEMENT > PAGES AND SCREENS
“Scrolls” is an event that occurs when a user scrolls past 90% of the page
pretty much everything is an event, so event reports aren’t great. For example, exiting a website is an event.
to make thus report a bit better, we want “engagement rate” added to the table.
- click the pencil icon in
REPORTS – Snapshot
You can add comparisons, by clicking “Add comparison +” at the top, or by clicking the “edit comparisons” icon which is near the top right:
REAL TIME
Real time reports are from the last 30 minutes (it was 5 mins in GA universal)
You can also add comparisons on realtime reports
ACQUISITION OVERVIEW
These report, show traffic sources that bring visitors to your site
“You can use the User acquisition report to get insights into how new users find your website or app for the first time. The report differs from the Traffic acquisition report, which focuses on where new sessions came from, regardless of whether the user is new or returning.”
In the traffic acquisition report, if a user comes from organic search, and then later from paid search, both those sessions will show in the traffic acquisition report, but only organic would should in the User Acquisition report.
ENGAGEMENT
Events – you will see automatic events, like “scroll”, and custom events that you have implemented.
Conversions – “more important events” are conversions – like a purchase. These need to be configured manually.
Pages and Screens – see what people are doing on which pages. “Screens” is a term for mobile apps.
MONETIZATION
Needs sales tracking implemented.
You can see most popular proucts that have sold, how much revenue has been generated etc.
User Retention – Show how many users come back to the site. Don’t trust the data 100% due to cookies being blocked or expiring.
