Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is a powerful and comprehensive marketing tool that helps you make better business decisions for your websites and apps.
GA4 is now available as an effective analytical tool used by 14.2 million websites. Google has made exceptional changes to Google Analytics 4 since it was announced four years ago.
In this ultimate guide, you’ll learn what’s changed, what GA4 is, how to use GA4, GA4 reporting, and everything you need to know to get started with Google Analytics 4 (GA4).
What is GA4 (Google Analytics 4)?
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is a web analytical tool designed to handle traffic and engagement for your websites and apps.
It helps you to check how users interact and use your platform so you can modify your marketing efforts for better engagement. It provides you with direct integration to different media platforms to help drive actions on your website.
Google Analytics 4: What's Changed Should I Upgrade to GA4?
GA4 (Google Analytics 4) is an advanced analytical tool that replaces Universal Analytics. Now, everything is based on users and events rather than sessions, as we are used to. Every user interaction is treated as a separate event in an event-based model.
This change is important because previously, we used a session-based approach that allowed customer interaction within the given time period. If you are thinking about shifting from sessions to events, you know what the benefits are. It can provide marketers with huge benefits, such as identifying trends and improving analysis.
Google Analytics 4 became more flexible and improved its ability to predict user behaviour by switching to an event-based approach.
Do you know that GA4 is being used by 43.35% of the high-ranking websites? So, to maintain your website measurement, it’s best to switch to GA4. Create a GA4 property to work parallel with Universal Analytics.
Future analysis will be more useful if you collect data and improve your machine learning (ML) model, even if you plan to wait to use it. Better data collection results in more intelligent marketing strategies.
GA4 Setup Guide: How to Use GA4 (Google Analytics 4)
GA4 configuration only requires a few clicks. The analysis tool you know will remain untouched and continue collecting data. You can still access your UA (Universal analytics) view from the admin screen.
If you haven’t used UA before, you’ll start by creating a new GA4 account, but if you have a Universal Analytics account, there’s a good chance you already have a pre-generated GA4 property. Here’s how to link your existing Universal analytics system with the new GA4 data stream.
Steps for Setting Up GA4
The following are the steps you need to follow to set up GA4:
- Enter Your Google Analytics login information.
- Click Admin. Gear symbol, navigation on the left button.
- Verify that the account you want is selected.
- Make sure the desired property is selected.
- Click on GA4 Setup Assistant, the first option in the Property column.
- Once in the Wizard, click the Get Started button
Only one step left, click on the button Create Property.
How Can GA4 Assist In Reporting
Google Analytics 4 collects data from your apps and web pages to design a report that provides insight into your business. You can use reports to monitor traffic, analyse data, and understand your users and their activities.
Online creators think highly of GA4. Do you know why? Its market value was around $19 million recently, but it is predicted to scale up to $68.9 million by 2028.
GA4 is a forward-thinking algorithm that helps close the data gaps using advanced machine learning techniques. It assembles all the linked files associated with the same ID to a single user journey.
Lastly, GA4 makes it easy to report on conversations so marketers can see important trends and gaps in their data.
Effective Way to Use GA4 Reports
The main page displays the overview of the property’s total traffic, transactions and revenue when you first log in. The best usage for this is a check to ensure everything works as expected.
Your home page report will respond quickly:
- Where are new users coming from?
- Which of your campaigns are the most successful?
- Which screens and pages are most frequently viewed?
Realtime Report
Realtime reporting allows you to track activity happening on your website or app. By plotting the chart, you can see how users enter the transition and how they behave once they enter the channel:
- Users per minute in the last 30 minutes.
- Where are your users?
- Your user who they are?
- What content do they interact with?
- What events do they attend?
- Which key event do they complete?
Life Cycle Reporting
With the help of Life cycle collection, you can better analyse user behaviour on your web pages from acquisition to retention. It’s not the same as the user collection, which provides details about individual users.
The Life Cycle Reports collection includes the Acquisition, Engagement, Monetization, and Retention reports. It is perfect for examining user behaviour once they enter the conversion funnel.
Explorer Reports: Analysis
Your exploration reports let you go beyond the standard reports available in Google Analytics 4.
Using exploration reports, you can uncover ad hoc insights with templates or create a custom analysis of your websites.
How to Create a New Analysis
The following are the steps to follow to create a new analysis:
- Login into your GA4 account
- Click Analysis
Select the method you want to use for your data analysis.
Types Of Analysis In GA4
Funnel Analysis
In Google Analytics 4 (GA4), funnel analysis visually shows the visitor’s journey through a particular conversion path. To increase user engagement and conversion rates, it allows businesses to identify drop-off spots and improve the conversion process.
Path Analysis
The Path exploration report in the GA4 shows how users navigate your website or online store. It can also show the sequence of actions performed by the user.
An event stream is a series of events a user creates along his route. The event stream is shown through path analysis in a “tree graph.” Analytics technology helps marketers identify behaviour that may indicate users are stuck.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is a major upgrade in analytics, providing marketers with enhanced flexibility and predictive capabilities while protecting customer privacy.
This exciting tool provides deeper insights into website traffic and user behaviour, allowing businesses to make better business decisions.
With GA4, you can easily follow its features to gain useful information. This makes GA4 an essential first course for all business professionals.
