Google Analytics 4

The Zero Above Complete Guide

Introduction

Google Analytics is an essential tool for any business’s marketing plan. Providing valuable insights for SEO, social media and advertising ROI, it’s the central offering for Google’s suite of Marketing tools.

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the most recent iteration of this service, marking a significant overhaul of the way in which the software works. Using machine learning and AI to provide better data insights, customer-centric data and deeper integration with Google Ads, as well as a brand new user interface, there’s lots to learn before you migrate to GA4.

Why do I need to migrate to GA4 now?

Simply put, more data and preparedness will put your business marketing strategies ahead of the competition. In June 2023, Google will phase out previous iterations of analytics, meaning that you’ll need to migrate before then. But there are a few more benefits to setting up early:

• Get to know GA4: setting up with GA4 doesn’t void your previous GA account, meaning that you can still find your familiar reports whilst you learn the new interface.
• Collect more data: By migrating to GA4 now, you’ll build up a data set whilst still having access to your previous Analytics, meaning by June, GA4’s machine learning will be optimised for you. Migrating doesn’t carry over data from previous GA versions automatically, so you’ll have to do this manually.
• Year-Over-Year: This data is only available in GA4 from the month you set up, not from the first date of migrated data. To get this information ahead of the competition, you need to set up soon.

Moving to GA4 now? Our ‘how to’ guides are a comprehensive look at everything you might need to know. From setting up to collating and customising your interface, Zero Above’s experts cover it all.

Set up GA4 on a site with Universal GA

As you get started on learning about GA4, it is important to understand how to add it alongside your current Universal Analytics setup. There will be no changes to your Universal Analytics, but GA4 will start collecting more data from the moment of setup.

STEP 1: Go to Google Analytics and click ‘Admin.’

STEP 2: Make sure you are selecting the correct account, found in the Account column.

STEP 3: In the Property column, select the Universal Analytics property that collects your data currently. In the same column, choose ‘GA4 Setup Assistant.’

STEP 4: Click the ‘Get Started’ button under ‘I want to create a new GA4 property’.

STEP 5: Check your tags. If your site uses gtag.js, then you will have the option to ‘Enable collection using your existing tags.’ This also applies if your website builder also supports gtag.js, such as WordPress, Wix, etc. If you use Google Tag Manager, your website is tagged with analytics.js, or your website builder does not support gtag.js, then you will need to manually add tags yourself.

STEP 6: Click ‘Create Property’. The set-up wizard creates your new GA4 property, copies your website name, time zone, and currency setting over, activates enhanced measurements, and creates the connection between your Universal Analytics and GA4 properties.

Once this is complete, you will see the header ‘You have successfully connected your properties’ at the top of the page. The process is now complete, and you will be able to start accessing your data from GA4 within 30 minutes.

Set up Destination Events

STEP 1: The Configure section. Head to the configure section within GA4. This is where we can set up our custom events and conversions.

STEP 2: Creating a new event. Create a new event by clicking on the “Create event” button.

STEP 3: Your custom events. On the next screen, which lists your custom events (this will be empty if you’re setting this up for the first time), there is another button called “Create” click this to start setting up the event.

STEP 4: Set up the event parameters. After clicking the “Create” button, you will be presented with a range of options to set up your event. To set up a destination event, you will first need to give your event a name such as “email_click”. We find it easiest to use underscores instead of spaces when working with GA4. Next, you will need to add the conditions to trigger this event. As it’s a destination event, we need to select: event_name equals page_view AND page_location equals [the URL string after your domain name], e.g.,/thank-you/. Then click on the “Create” button at the top of the page.

Set up Interaction Events

There are two different ways to set up interaction events in GA4; however, both require Google Tag Manager or custom code. We will show you our preferred way of adding interaction events via Tag Manager.

STEP 1: Go to Tag Manager. Go to the Google Tag Manager account for your website.

STEP 2: Create a new tag. Click on the “New” button to create a new tag, which will pull up a range of tags you can create.

STEP 3: Select the GA4 Event tag. Give your tag a name and then click on “Tag Configuration” to start setting up your tag — select “Google Analytics: GA4 Event” from the list.

STEP 4: Set the measurement ID. If you’ve set up GA4 via Tag Manager, you can select your existing GA4 tag. If you’ve set it up another way, you can manually set your measurement ID (G-A2ABC2ABCD). The next step is to add a name for your new event; this will be the event name shown in GA4.

STEP 5: Configure the trigger. Set up a trigger for your new tag — e.g. any link clicks with “tel:” in it.

STEP 6: Publish Tag Manager workspace. Once both the tag and trigger have been saved and the new version submitted and live, events should appear in your GA4 account. Use “DebugView” to make sure events are firing correctly.

Set up Conversions

Setting up a conversion in GA4 is relatively simple once you’ve got your events set up and working!

STEP 1: Head to the configure menu. Make a note of the name of the event you just created (e.g. email_click or phone_click), then head to the conversions section on the GA4 configure menu and click the “New conversion event” button.

STEP 2: Add event name. Add the name of the event you’ve just created, then click “Save”.

STEP 3: (Optional) Debug events and conversions. Head to the “DebugView” menu item to make sure your event is triggering correctly — you’ll need the Google Analytics Debugger Chrome extension, or edit the tag on your website to put it into debug mode.

Once you enter debug mode, you should start to see the different events start to appear, and when you trigger your conversion event, it should come up in green with a little flag icon.

Organic Landing Page Report

Universal Analytics

The organic landing page report is one of the most useful Universal Analytics reports for measuring the effectiveness of your SEO activity, allowing you to measure the number of organic sessions that have started on a particular URL over a period of time. Whether you’re using it to discover your best-performing content or to monitor organic traffic levels before/after tweaks to a page, this report has been a go-to for SEOs ever since Google removed organic keyword data from Analytics and replaced it with (not provided).

In order to access this report within Universal Analytics, you would head to Behaviour > Site Content > Landing Pages and then replace the “All Users” segment with “Organic Traffic”.

Hey presto, a list of top organic landing pages along with metrics such as Pages/Session, Session Duration and even Goal Completions.

GA4

As you may have guessed, this incredibly useful report is not quite as easy to find in GA4. The good news, however, is that it is available.

STEP 1: In order to access this data in GA4, head to Reports > Engagement > Pages and Screens.

STEP 2: In the table below the 2 charts at the top, you will notice that by default, GA4 will display the page title as opposed to the page path/URL as you will be used to seeing in Universal Analytics reports. If you would like to see the page path, then click “Page title and screen class” and select “Page path + query string and screen class”.

STEP 3: The data you are now looking at will resemble the standard “All Pages” report from Universal Analytics – since there is no option to view “Landing Pages”, we need to make a further tweak to this table. Where you see the “Views”, “Users” and “New Users” columns, scroll across to the right until you see “Event Count”. By default, this will be set to “All Events” – click on the downward-facing arrow and select “session_start” to view the number of times that particular page triggered the start of a session.

STEP 4: You can now click to sort the table by Event Count, which will give you your top landing pages report… But we are looking for organic sessions, so there’s another step.

As you would in Universal Analytics, head to the “All Users” segment at the top of the screen:

STEP 5:Clicking on “All Users” will bring up some options on the right-hand side of the screen – change “Audience Name” to “Session default channel grouping” and change the dimension value to “Organic Search”.

STEP 6: Hit “Apply” and you’ll be presented with your table of top organic landing pages (pay attention to the Event Count column rather than Views).

And there you have it!

It’s worth noting that you will need to go through these steps each time you access GA4 to see this data. There are some other ways of viewing this report using the Explore section of GA4; however, historical data is limited when using this feature, so use this method to allow yourself a look further back.

Find Conversion Rates

One of the more puzzling omissions in GA4’s initial release was the inclusion of a conversion rate metric… Given the heavy emphasis of almost every website on conversions, maximising usability, and the existence of Google’s own “Google Optimise” tool, which allows website owners to run tests to optimise their conversion rates, it would seem that retaining a “conversion rate” metric would be a given in Google’s new analytics platform. Fortunately, it was announced on the 11th July ’22 that, alongside Bounce Rate, they were indeed reintroducing Conversion Rate as an available metric.

In Universal Analytics, we have (or soon, “had”) the ability to track conversion rates in the standard reporting for campaigns, keywords, landing pages, ad groups, etc, with the option of drilling down further to view the conversion rate of a particular goal; however, in the new GA4 platform, as things stand, not all of these are readily available. The good news is that the data is indeed available – we just need to jump through some hoops to find it!

STEP 1: Create a new blank Exploration Report. At this time, Conversion Rate is unavailable within the “Reporting” section of GA4; however, we can import the metric in an Exploration Report — click “Explore” and create a blank Exploration Report.

STEP 2: Import Dimensions & Metrics. Under “Variables” on the left, click the “+” next to Dimensions and search for “Session default channel grouping” — check and click “Import”. Do the same with Metrics, selecting Sessions, Session Conversion Rate and Conversions.

There you have it — conversion rate, broken down by channel… But this is just for total conversions! If you want to see conversion rates for specific conversions, there are a few more steps.

STEP 3: Set up a new report in Google Data Studio. Head over to Google Data Studio and create a new blank report (or add your GA4 account as a data source to an existing report).

STEP 4: Create Scorecards for “Conversions” and “Sessions”. Once your GA4 account is set up as a data source, create a Scorecard and change the dimension from “Views” to “Conversions”. Then do the same again, but change the dimension to “Sessions” or “Users” depending on whether you want to see a session-based conversion rate (as you would find in Universal Analytics) or user-based.

STEP 5: Select both Scorecards and “Blend Data” — select “conversions” first, then “sessions” — right-click and select “Blend Data” to create a new Scorecard named “Conversions / Sessions”.

STEP 6: Add an Event Name Filter. Add a filter to your “Conversions” Scorecard — Include > Event Name > Equal to > [the name of your conversion event].

STEP 7: Rename “Conversions” dimension to [conversion name] — give your filtered Scorecard a more descriptive name.

STEP 8: Repeat Step 4 for the sessions Scorecard and blend the data to get your new conversion-specific conversion rate.

Whilst this process is a little more convoluted than we’re used to, this workaround may well only be a temporary requirement as Google regularly introduces new features.

Find Referral Sources

Given the stripped-back navigation within GA4 versus the fairly convoluted Universal Analytics sidebar, there are likely to be a whole host of reports that you’re used to accessing very quickly and easily, which will now require slightly more manipulation to find.

The Universal Analytics navigation has grown over the past 10+ years, and other than some slight restructuring here and there, for the most part, reports were just bolted on, so that there are now 106 reports listed down the left-hand side! GA4, on the other hand, currently has just 16.

One of the reports that has been available since the start is the Referrals report – a list of websites that have sent traffic to your site. In Universal Analytics, you would access this report by heading to Acquisition > All Traffic > Referrals, but in GA4, it is not so readily available. Fortunately, it is still available, but as with many reports in GA4, it requires some extra work to uncover.

Where are Referrals in GA4?

STEP 1: Firstly, head to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic Acquisition.

STEP 2: This will bring up a report resembling the “All Traffic” report in Universal Analytics, with Users and Sessions broken down by Session Default Channel Grouping.

STEP 3: Click “Session default channel grouping” in the top left and change it to “Session source” to strip out the medium and leave a list of websites that sent traffic to your site.

STEP 4: Head to the top left of the report where it says “All Users” — open “Build comparison”, change “Audience name” to “Session default channel grouping” and set the Dimension value to “Referral”.

STEP 5: Hit apply, and you’ll be greeted with the Referrals report you’re likely more familiar with from Universal Analytics.

Access Google Ads Data

When using Universal Analytics, we can simply head to Acquisition > Google Ads > Campaigns, and we will be presented with a table detailing the performance of all campaigns from connected Google Ads accounts.

The GA4 Method(s)

There are several ways of accessing this data in Google Analytics 4, but there is no “Google Ads” option within the slimmed-down left-hand nav, and some manipulation of the standard reports is required.

The Traffic Acquisition Report

STEP 1: The logical place to look for Google Ads statistics would be Acquisition > Traffic Acquisition, similar to the All Traffic > Channels report in Universal Analytics.

STEP 2: Add a secondary dimension by clicking the blue “+” button in the top left.

STEP 3: Head down to Traffic Source and select “Session Campaign”, which adds a column breaking down each channel by campaign.

STEP 4: Change the segment so that rather than looking at “All Users”, you’re just looking at Google Ads Paid Search traffic.

STEP 5: Click “All Users” — bring up “Build Comparison”, change the dimension to “source/medium” with value “google/cpc”, then add another condition for “Session Default Channel Grouping” = “Paid Search”.

The Acquisition Overview Card

There is a simpler way to view Google Ads campaign data, but it comes at the cost of some engagement statistics.

STEP 1: Head to Acquisition > Overview and scroll down to the card that displays Sessions by Session Google Ads Campaign.

STEP 2: Click “View Google Ads Campaigns” for a much neater table displaying top-level campaign performance metrics.

View Paid Social Campaign Performance

As Universal Analytics is set to come to a halt midway through 2023, being able to track our social campaigns and keep them intact and optimised is crucial.

How Does GA4 Differentiate Between Paid and Organic Social?

In Universal Analytics, paid social and organic social were combined into one “social” category by default. In GA4, by default, they’re separated — found in your traffic acquisition report.

• For organic social, the source has to match a list of the social networks ‘OR’ the medium has to match: “social”, “social-network”, “social-media”, “sm”, “social network”, “social media”
• For paid search, the source has to match a social network, ‘AND’ the medium has to match: “cpc”, “ppc”, “paid”

Viewing Campaign Performance

By selecting the default channel grouping drop-down above the table, you can view the data split down by campaign, source, medium and platform. Add a secondary dimension via the ‘+’ button, then go to ‘Traffic Source’ > ‘Session Campaign’ to view all running campaigns.

Customising the Report Specific to Your Needs

Click “Customise report” (pencil icon, top right), then ‘Metrics’ > ‘Add metric’ for a list of possible metrics — bounce rate, returning users, session duration, views, etc.

How to View Only Paid Social

STEP 1: Click on ‘All Users’ at the top of the report, opening a column on the right.

STEP 2: Change the dimension to ‘Session default channel grouping’ and the dimension value to ‘Paid Social’, and click Apply.

Customise the G4 Interface

Managing custom reports and making them easy to find and access — by displaying your new custom reports in the left-hand menu, it will be easy for anyone working with your analytics to find them, especially if they’re used to Universal Analytics.

STEP 1: Navigate To Report Library. Head to the reporting tab on the left-hand menu and scroll down to the folder icon labelled Library.

STEP 2: Create Your Report. Click the Create New Report button and build your report as you normally would in the Explore section of GA4.

STEP 3: Creating A Collection. Head back to the library section, click “Create new collection”, and choose the “Blank” option.

STEP 4: Customising Your Collection. Give the Collection a broad name (e.g. Organic reports). Create a topic (a header for your reports), then add your reports by dragging them into “overview report” or “detail report” tabs.

STEP 5: Saving & Displaying Reports. Click save, then back — you’ll see your new collection marked as unpublished. Click the three dots to rename and publish, adding it to the left-hand menu.

Now that your custom reports are easy to access and manage, GA4 should start to become easier to use and resemble Universal Analytics more closely.

Partner with Zero Above

We understand the difficulties of learning a new system and then knowing what data is helpful to develop new marketing strategies. GA4 is such a huge interface overhaul from Universal Analytics that any newcomer would feel intimidated, even with the help of our guide.

That’s why the Zero Above team offers tiered packages to aid your migration to GA4. Depending on your specific needs, we provide tailored options. Get in touch with us to learn more.